Maker of the month / Jewellery

Caroline Broadhead is a highly versatile artist. Trained as jeweller, she developed her practice beyond this discipline to work on a larger scale, with textiles, light and space and also in collaboration with choreographers for dance performances, winning the Jerwood Prize for Applied Arts: Textiles in 1997.

Now the newly appointed course director of BA Jewellery at Central St Martins, she says, ‘My work is mainly driven by ideas but making and materials are an integral part of the process. You can’t make things without considering the craft of it.’

‘I just want to make treasures’, says jeweller Zoe Arnold, and this is probably the best word to describe her complex, multi-layered creations. A cross between jewellery and miniature sculpture, they are beautifully made, slightly bizarre precious objects, often with a strong narrative element and a hint of the surreal. Many are based on Arnold’s own poems, as in addition to being a talented jeweller, she is also a poet and story writer.

Hong Kong-born maker Nora Fok uses nylon fishing line to make complex jewellery inspired by a wide variety of natural forms. Her delicate, intricate structures push jewellery to a new dimension, transforming organic forms into wearable, ethereal sculpture. Fok was short-listed for the Jerwood Applied Arts Prize 2007: Jewellery and her work is in several national collections including those of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Crafts Council and the National Museums of Scotland.

Winchester-based jeweller Lindsey Mann makes lively, colourful pieces using printed aluminium, plastics, silver and found domestic objects. She calls them wearable sculptures rather than jewellery as many of her pieces can both be worn and used as an ornament to decorate the home. Her work references domestic crafts, home interiors and household gadgetry and she says, ‘I am interested in the significance and beauty of everyday objects and the way in which they can so easily be overlooked.’
www.lindseymann.co.uk