When I first started out as a jeweller many moons ago, I worked in all sorts of materials; aluminium, silver, stainless steel and occasionally gold. I particulary liked my metals in different shades of grey and this piece from back in 2008 was a lovely combination of aluminium, silver, oxidised silver, labradorite and moonstone.
I also pationately love yellow gold of course but budget restrainsts in the early years meant that generally I could only afford to use it if someone ordered something in it.
There was actually a mishap at the casters once, and a big piece that was supposed to be made in silver for my graduate show was accidentally cast in gold. That was a real ‘oh shit’ moment (read all about that here). But back to the story. As the business grew, I found that increasingly my clients asked for gold - be it yellow, warm white, rose or high palladium white. For the last 10 or so years gold has been my primary material.
Now, while there is still a strong demand for gold, I’m also acutely aware that the value of gold is currently the highest is has ever been - has increased by a whopping 40-60 percent in the last year (depending on who is talking), and that’s a fact that can’t be ignored.
I’ve wanted to get back to creating pieces in materials other than gold for a while now. This was partly to make my work more accessible to a wider audience, and partly because when you’re creating very large sculptural pieces, working with lighter weight, malleable materials such as silver or extremely lightweight aluminium can be very practical and opens up more possibilities, design-wise.
Last year’s silver collection went down a storm, and so by popular demand and also driven by the eye watering increase in the cost of gold, it seemed mad NOT to create another collection in silver for you now.
Rest assured, my design aesthetic is unaltered, and I’ll still create my work in 18 ct gold alongside, but it feels like the right time to explore a wider range of materials once again.
Discover my silver collection here. As you’ll see, it’s a mixture of old JHW classics revisited in silver, and brand new designs exclusively created for this drop.