Thoughts on finding a 'maker's voice'

When you make jewellery, in my case usually inspired by the natural forms and textures I find in my garden or the nature reserve on my doorstep, you find yourself in the often uncomfortable position of reworking shapes and objects like leaves and pebbles that thousands of other jewellers are also exploring in their own way. Hopefully as one's skills and vision grow, one begins to find a sort of 'maker's voice', a recognisable style and direction of one's own which slowly becomes signature. Over the Christmas break, I will continue to look through my collections and keep distilling them down to the key pieces which seem to best voice my personal view and love of botanical forms, those which have resulted from the most direct interactions and explorations of my local landscape, from my own sketches, photographs, flower pressing and so on.

Even with my more generic pieces like my stacking rings or dish set rings, there are many design choices I have made in order to keep my pieces inherently different and my own. For example, every dish set ring I make, whilst being a very common mount shape, is made using entirely unique- to-me ring shanks. For years, instead of using regular wire to make these rings, I use bands I originally carved out of wax - a skinny one, a bark textured one and a wide one, all with flat profiles to make stacking easier.

Every single dish set or stacking ring (apart from really big ones which very occasionally need to be made with wire formed to match) is made using one of these three unique bands. Each one has little irregularities of shape and texture that make them different and entirely 'Wild Acre'. I have always polished my pieces myself, with shiny or brushed finishes or some more rustic finishes using my own customised tools.

Tomorrow, I am pootling off to my local art suppliers and getting myself a new and lovely big sketchbook for 2016 - not just for drawing in, but as in my sketchbooks of previous years, for sticking in gorgeous meadowgrasses, hedgerow flowers and scraps of lichen and other lovely finds to inspire my work. This is where my focus is going to be this coming year, on the meadowy, watery landscape I am so lucky to live in and the small botanical wonders I find there. Seed heads, acorns, summer grasses - these sort of things may not be the most original of inspirations but they are the things I love, that I am surrounded by and which seem to call my name, so I am giving my creative energy to voicing with confidence the beauty I find here. Less worry about what others think, more focus on practising my drawing, photo taking and silversmith skills, more experimentation and play, so that voice can sing a bit more freely and less fearfully.

The year is drawing to a close after a fantastic few weeks of fairs and events and am so grateful for every customer, new and old, for every conversation about what I am trying to do, and for the lovely enthusiasm and support I have found - thank you so much to everyone who has supported my small business this year, I am so thankful. My webshop is shutting for a couple of weeks from this friday 18th December, but I look forward to re-opening in January, hopefully rested and rejuvenated and ready for the new year with new ideas and dreams beginning to bubble away! Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas. xxx