About

I am Associate Professor and after 8 years as programme leader for MA Design became Course Leader for MA Jewellery & Metalwork. I have worked in higher education since 1993 at several universities across the UK and in my current role supervise post-graduate and PhD students alongside undertaking research and practice. I studied at the RCA in London graduating in 1991 with a Master of Arts in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery. I established a creative design studio in London and in 1995 relocated to Sheffield where I currently live and work.

As a senior researcher I engage in design, making, writing and curating. A key element of my creative research explores personal and social rituals through wearable artefacts and domestic objects and the reading of these in the context of contemporary visual culture. Research is primarily practice-led and through the production of artefacts I explore the relationship between jewellery and objects to body, place, context and their meaning. Sensory experience through the interaction of these objects challenges the wearer or users emotive, physical and visual perceptions.

Emotional attachments and the hand-crafted object also relate to material sustainability, consumption, and audience engagement. Recent projects investigate how co-creative Participatory Research (PAR) methods can empower and create meaningful agency. Since 2014 I have worked on projects funded by the EPSRC and AHRC and led a Research England’s Global Challenge Research Funded project. Through 'Create & Connect' in East Africa and 'Making Links' in Indonesia I undertook collaborative research with artisan craft makers, academics and fair-trade organisations to enable social and economic empowerment. Outcomes from these have been disseminated internationally through exhibitions, international trade fairs, conference presentations, journal papers and guest lectures.

I have exhibited nationally and internationally and was in the 2000 shortlist for the Jerwood Applied Arts prize for Jewellery. My wearable artefacts and objects have been purchased for several collections including the Crafts Council, The Goldsmiths’ Company, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The National Museums of Scotland, and the Sheffield Assay Office. In 2019 I was invited to curate the inaugural exhibition for the opening of the BR gallery at the Intangible Cultural Heritage Center for Metalwork in Yunnan, China.

I am passionate about education, widening participation in the creative arts and supporting new designer/ makers and their enterprises. I have done this by contributing to many external organisations during my professional life. I was on the first executive committee for the Association for Contemporary Jewellery (ACJ), was a founding member of Sheffield’s Galvanize Festival, a mentor for the starter studio for Silversmithing & jewellery at Yorkshire Artspace and a Trustee of Museums Sheffield for 7 years. My contribution to the subject discipline has been recognized through the awarding of Freedom of the Goldsmiths’ Company, the City of London (2006) and the Company of Cutlers’ in Hallamshire (2007).

Teaching

Department of Art and Design , Sheffield Creative Industries Institute

College of Social Sciences and Arts

What's in my stuff?
Create & Connect
Making Links

Postgraduate - Portfolio 2

MA Jewellery & Metalwork

Material Research, Theory & Practice
Critical making - Jewellery & Metalwork
MA Project - Jewellery & Metalwork

Research

• Art and Design Research Centre
• Culture and Creativity Research Institute

Memory & Meaning

This research sits within narrative jewellery & objects, a well-established and dynamic genre within contemporary applied arts practice. It employs techniques such as association, personal viewing methodologies, and connections between historical references and contemporary language. There is a distinctive interplay between the past and the present which draws upon diverse cultures, traditions, and visual and material vocabularies. References are not simply replicated but are reinterpreted and re-contextualised enabling new discourses to emerge.

Narrative making serves as a vessel for individual stories, emotions, and experiences. These artefacts, embody complex ideas that resonates with both the creator, user and wearer, exploring the objective – subjective dichotomy of the biographer as the researcher. It is a medium through which personal stories are shared, and universal themes are explored, allowing for both personal and collective memory and meaning to be expressed.

What's in my stuff

Making Links: Craft Value Chain

Making Links Together: Valuing people and creativity

Yunnan Exhibition

Made in Zanzibar: a jewellers perspective

AHRC
EPSRC
Research England - GCRF
Just Trade Ltd

Publications

Other activities

1991 - Present Artist / Maker: Jewellery & Objects

2012 – 2019 Trustee: Museums Sheffield

2006 – 2015 Committee Member: Galvanize Metalwork Festival, Sheffield

2007 - Present. Freeman of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire

2006 - Present Freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company & City of London

2001 - 2014 Mentor - Yorkshire Artspace

1997 – 2001 Executive committee: Association for Contemporary Jewellery (ACJ)

Postgraduate supervision

I am interested in supervising PhD students who's topics align with current research interests.

Director of Study Amal Al-Ismaili: Interpreting the Traditional Jewellery of Bedouin in Oman through Contemporary Jewellery Practice (Completed 2020) Imogen Cheng: Durable Relationship: Revealing the hidden values of kept objects through Contemporary Jewellery (In progress)"