Preparing for the spring exhibition at the Byre Gallery

Last year I was lucky to exhibit twice with the lovely Elaine at the Byre Gallery, a well respected and expertly curated contemporary art and craft gallery down near Plymouth (still in Cornwall!). I did well and so have been invited back again this year as a regular exhibitor, which is very exciting indeed! I’ll be taking part in the “In full view” spring exhibition and also in the summer exhibition(s) later on. I thought I’d share a bit of my prep work for this exhibition and also some of the finished pieces. The stock in its entirety will be revealed when the exhibition starts but for now enjoy! 😀

The Rugged Collection

This time I will be sending new stock from my Rugged collection as well as from the new Framed collection. Below are some of the gorgeous stones I had to work with this time. I will be adding my trademark fused textures to these stones to create pieces full of character and inspired by the rocks and cliffs of the north Cornwall coastline. This collection is going strong and I love making these pieces, every one turns out differently due to the nature of the fusing technique used to create the silver components that are integral to this collection. There will be pendants, rings and earrings in the exhibition.

Some beautiful stones in their silver bezels on my bench. We’ve got aquamarine, kyanite, rainbow moonstone and dendritic agate!

The dendritic quartzes were destined to be part of the Framed collection instead just in case you wonder what happened to them!

Gemstones on the bench, ready to be made into Rugged duo pendants with textured silver — Duo pendants in progress! These combination pendants with textured silver have been very popular.

Often things don’t go quite to plan. The beautiful moss aquamarine gem in the picture didn’t make the cut. Somehow a tiny piece of steel from an abrasive brush must have made its way into the setting, so after a few days it started showing an, although very pretty in away, non desired blue colour streak behind the stone! So, that pendant is now sitting around my own neck, which is where rejects often end up! But the other three made the cut and will be gracing the exhibition teamed up with textured silver pendants made from recycled sterling.

I shall post again soon with some of the finished pieces for the exhibition, so do watch this space! In the meantime, I’d love it if you signed up to my mailing list (below), to be one of the first to know about new pieces, events and other news from me.

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