The Past, The Present and The Process

 

 

Being Artistic and creating things of beauty for me is an organic process.

It starts as an idea that is inspired by things you see, things that are said to you and sometimes from emotions that you feel but it is never straight forward.

It will never be a matter of just making something from a book and I don’t have the ability to just copy something else as I need to imprint my ideas, thoughts and feelings onto the work.

This is something I have been thinking about for the past couple of days as a result of selling a piece of jewellery on the weekend.

I had a lovely customer come to my stall in Newcastle on the weekend and fall in love with a necklace called “Grandpa’s Oyster Farm”.

I have had the piece for quite a while and I made it shortly after my grandfather died as it was inspired from memories of him and his oyster farm when I was little.

My grandfather and I loved each other very much and he was a man who always worked hard but had the ability to look at nature and see the beauty, whether it was a leaf, the clouds, the river or a tree. He used to tell my mother she was lucky to be able to do this also and it is something I am grateful for that she passed to me.

 

When I think of my grandfather I think of the sound of the wind in the trees, the lapping of the water on the boat, the sound of oyster shells hitting the metal as they were poured out of hessian sacks and the smell of salt.

It was all these things that I had wrapped into the necklace I had made and it is surprising how emotionally attached I was to that necklace.

When I sold it on the weekend I felt a sense of loss for the memories but then I realised that the beautiful customer who purchased it was now going to benefit from the memories of my grandfather and I am grateful that someone else in the world will have a piece of my family history all wrapped up in a gorgeous necklace.