I came to jewellery the unconventional route,watching and trial and error made up the very early days, frequent tool and metal buying trips to Hatton Garden brought me into contact with many talented craftsmen and being the person I am I would not leave a workshop without learning a new technique or trick. I couldn’t watch someone set a diamond without asking what tools he used, how he used them which stones worked best in which situation etc…
What I didn’t realise was that I was being initiated into an ancient set of rules that had been followed for millennia. Jewellery found in Varna (Bulgaria) is dated to 4500bc….people have been working gold in the same way as we do in my workshop for at least 6500 years!!!!!Facts like these made me want to learn more and tied me in a mystical way with the past.To know that the piece of gold I am working with might have been used by a jeweller in Roman Britain or by Indo-Europeans on the shores of the Black Sea(nobody ever throws gold away it always gets recycled!!)completely blow me away.Diamond,ruby,sapphire,emerald are precious because of their qualities of longevity,they are hard,durable and have a lustre that lasts,they get cut and repolished over and over again for hundreds of years.
Looking around the workshop I see many tools that haven’t changed for hundreds of years,cow hide and wooden mallets, swage blocks, cruciles, but I also see ultrasonic cleaners,rubber mould makers and lasers for soldering, a microscope for micro-setting. Ancient and modern exist in the same place, those skills from old sit comfortably with the latest technologies.See my Blog for more information on some the amazing projects that we do……