(Written in 2009)
I trained as an architect and got a BA and Dip Arch at the Portsmouth School of Architecture in 1975, but soon became frustrated with the profession.
I found I was looking in jewellery shop windows for about a year without knowing what it was I was looking for!
It wasn't till I met a jeweller who taught me the basics of working with silver and gold that there was a flood of ideas that created the momentum and inspiration to free me from my tedious job in Chipping Sodbury (I was living in Bristol) in 1979.
My mother became my agent (I didn't have a clue) and her great sales technique got my work into Liberty's and Bond Street in the first year! There was also lots of commissions from friends of mine, of my parents and from people who saw what I was doing.
The first things I made were inlays of seascapes, landscapes and eastern townscapes with silver, gold, ebony, ivory (certified), malachite and abalone shell. They were very fulfilling to make and to enjoy looking at afterwards. I'd wonder how I could have done them ... as if someone else made them!
But they were rather labour intensive, and I moved into creating brooches, etc, made from silver and gold - of time-weathered looking baroque Mediterranean facades.
After about a decade of that I got into using enamels.
The architectural theme has persisted throughout, but I do keep returning to seascapes - probably a nostalgia from my early years in Australia (which I left when I was 17).
If you want to look at the pictures you might notice the different styles from the different periods.
I also do graphic illustration, and used to do a lot of sculpture and design work with TV
I've lived in Skelmersdale, Lancashire (UK) since 1980.
Below are a some photos taken over the years. If you click on them they will be shown enlarged.
I trained as an architect and got a BA and Dip Arch at the Portsmouth School of Architecture in 1975, but soon became frustrated with the profession.
I found I was looking in jewellery shop windows for about a year without knowing what it was I was looking for!
It wasn't till I met a jeweller who taught me the basics of working with silver and gold that there was a flood of ideas that created the momentum and inspiration to free me from my tedious job in Chipping Sodbury (I was living in Bristol) in 1979.
My mother became my agent (I didn't have a clue) and her great sales technique got my work into Liberty's and Bond Street in the first year! There was also lots of commissions from friends of mine, of my parents and from people who saw what I was doing.
The first things I made were inlays of seascapes, landscapes and eastern townscapes with silver, gold, ebony, ivory (certified), malachite and abalone shell. They were very fulfilling to make and to enjoy looking at afterwards. I'd wonder how I could have done them ... as if someone else made them!
But they were rather labour intensive, and I moved into creating brooches, etc, made from silver and gold - of time-weathered looking baroque Mediterranean facades.
After about a decade of that I got into using enamels.
The architectural theme has persisted throughout, but I do keep returning to seascapes - probably a nostalgia from my early years in Australia (which I left when I was 17).
If you want to look at the pictures you might notice the different styles from the different periods.
I also do graphic illustration, and used to do a lot of sculpture and design work with TV
I've lived in Skelmersdale, Lancashire (UK) since 1980.
Below are a some photos taken over the years. If you click on them they will be shown enlarged.
To view a larger version, just click on any particular picture. Get back to where you were by clicking your 'back' button [top left of your window].
This first section is the architectural brooches, make from silver and gold, with occasional abalone shell and enamel.
This one I like mucha... the roughness reminds
me of the weathered look of Sicilian grandeur. 45mm
I let accidents happen when I make these things. It'sas if Nature is doing what it does to the buildings
- but speeded up through me. 50mm
35mm
I made this recently after enjoying the architecturein Chipping Camden [near Stratford]. 30mm
This was the first of the architectural ones, andI still like it now. It was great to really let go and
allow the silver to distort and melt, and to splash
it with silver and gold solder. 35mm
I found that heating the solder up too muchcreates interesting textures and colours. 45mm
30mm
(The background is a storyboard for a children'sbook I have just finished). 40mm
40mmThe next batch is the inlay style which I started off with in 1979.
Some of the photos are not too good though...
The last section is enamel - I use mainly transparent enamel on silver, and often with gold leaf.
Oooh .. this brings back the beauty of the place.A bay in south west Wales (St Davids) where we go camping.
40mm
35mm
Unfinished in this photo. 50mm
30mm
40mm
35mm
Whoops ... the one on the rightis upside down! About 30mm.
30mm
On the left, 50mm
50mm
Sun setting over the see in Wales. 35mm
Abstract. With 2 eyes [ie not in a photo]it looks like opal. 40mm
I like this one. 30mm
Thanks for looking.
contact jpg.fuller@gmail.com
