Little Boxes

A few months ago I was approached by Coutts to decorate a jewellery box for charity - hoorah yes anything to distract me from admin yes please.

The money raised from auctioning the final 20 boxes goes to Children & the Arts which engages disadvantaged children who do not have access to high-quality arts because of social or economic barriers. Holts Academy is a not-for-profit organisation that supports 16-23 year olds into employment through work-study apprenticeship schemes. their overriding objective is to ensure the survival of age old British craft skills partnering with established jewellery businesses to provide long-term employment. 

Well here is my effort... the story of Tina the Ballerina and Billy the Builder....

 Not sure how and why but Billy did turn out looking slightly like Peter Cross (Peter, take it as flattery)

Tina the ballerina longed for a different life, trapped in pink and sparkly things she hated all the strife. 

Billy was a builder imprisoned by stereotype never had the strength to admit he didn't want a wife. 

Billy let the Prima free and melted at the tune filled with thoughts of dancing in Tina room. 

No more performing for others and feeling like each twin the builder and the ballerina at last happy in their skins

Being lucky enough to train in jewellery over (oh ahem - well over) 10 years ago I've seen just how much the craft has disappeared - courses are all too full of students trying to be clever and yes I was one of them and I went to one of the best traditional jewellery courses there was at Central St Martins and we had amazing tutors that I thought best to ignore and try and use different materials etc... it did me no good I came out not half as skilled in precious materials as I could have been for trying to be different.

If you want to use methods that aren't using traditional skills or for that matter, skill you don't need to be doing a course you can just do it or it should be what you do when you finish and the equipment isn't at your finger tips.

The point is is an amazing skill that's dying out and although not a necessity it would be a very dull world without skilled crafts people out there and certainly less shiny. 

I graduated in 1994 from jewellery design at Central St Martins; most of my time was spent thinking the further you strayed from typical jewellery the better without really questioning why. It's a typical art student mentality and every year at the graduation shows you can see the same characters year after year. I wish I'd paid attention to Ron and Neville my tutors at the time - I thought I knew better but doesn't everyone at that age....