About
Helen graduated with a BA(Hons) in Jewellery & Silversmithing from the School of Jewellery, Birmingham in 1996. For the subsequent 5 years, Helen shared a workshop in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter developing her skills and experience. From here, her Jewellery was stocked in Selfridges, London and she participated in trade fairs and exhibitions including Contemporary Decorative Arts at Sotheby’s, London 1997, Top Drawer, London 1998, 1999 and Hong Kong Jewellery Trade Fair 1999. During this time, Helen returned to the School of Jewellery to study for an MA in Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products which she completed in 2001.
A period in Northamptonshire followed, where Helen raised her son, alongside making jewellery and gaining teaching qualifications enabling her to run several weekly classes in silver jewellery-making, beading and wirework for Northampton County Council and other venues in Warwickshire.
Inspiration
There has always been a strong underlying influence taken from the visual significance of old linen bindings used in the ancient process of mummification. This tightly bound image has mysteriously worked on a subconscious level, the bindings become a metaphor for the invisible restrictions we carry within us - shaped by experience, expectation, fear and our instinct to protect.
The most recent Transcendence Collection is inspired by the ancient Egyptian funeral rituals. It was believed that the heart still held the thoughts and experiences of the deceased and for this reason it was preserved and remained inside the mummy to begin a journey to the afterlife where at the ‘Ceremony of the Heart’, the heart would be weighed against a feather. If the heart was without sin, the spirit could continue on its journey to the afterlife.
This collection explores our state of inner consciousness and the tension between holding on and letting go. The loosened bindings at the top of the hollow forms symbolic of making space for movement, transformation and freedom like the once preserved tightly bound mummy that transcends to another world.
Process
To make the larger hollow forms, I begin by designing and drawing these to scale. A wood turner will then make a wooden former, which I use to wrap the strips of copper around. Each length is hammered into a curve … this needs to be quite precise so that it fits snuggly around the former. It can take quite a bit of time to get the curve just right, as a flat curve is very different when it becomes a three-dimensional curve with gradual changes being made as I’m wrapping it around the shape. Each of these strips needs to fit well together so that it retains the original shape of the wooden former. When I am happy with how it looks, the layered strips are finally riveted into place and then the whole piece is patinated.
