Triangular Art Deco pendant by Jo Mollart-Highfield

I mainly work in silver, but you won’t see many highly polished pieces in my collections.  I love the more antique look of oxidisation of silver with lots of etched patterns.  However, everyone likes a bit of sparkle so to highlight designs I introduce gold (wire or leaf) or stones, often in flush settings so that they literally sink into the metal.

I like to combine my jewellery design with my other creative passion, photography.  Etching allows me to imprint hand-drawn patterns or intricate photographs onto the silver and many of my pieces incorporate my own images.  These are often created without a camera using age-old techniques such as photograms or chemigrams developed in my own darkroom.  These cameraless techniques are literally painting with light and whilst unpredictable in outcome, provide some beautiful abstract patterns.

Although I am inspired by many jewellers, I draw most of my inspiration from the wider world of art and design – whether it is the architecture of Thomas Heatherwick, the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth or the photographs of Karl Blossfeldt – and from the natural world around me.  It is rare that I will visit a garden, castle or beach without taking numerous photographs of a pattern or object that has caught my eye to later develop into a piece of jewellery.

I have lived in the beautiful county of Shropshire all my life and share a home near the world heritage site of Ironbridge with my husband.   All work is handmade by me in my small workshop and hallmarked with my ownmakers’s mark where required.