Lesley lives in Newquay on the North coast of Cornwall. In this beautiful, natural environment she cannot help but to become inspired to create individual handmade jewellery, which is all made in her own home workshop.
She believes the natural energy which surrounds her, from the salt laden air and the movement of the ocean, to the woodlands with rivers gushing over granite boulders, green pastures, beaches and wildlife, always provides motivation to design something personal and unique.
Lesley discovered working with metal only three years ago during her BA (Hons) Silversmithing and Jewellery degree at Truro-Penwith College. She had reached her 60s and wanted a new challenge with a chance to explore her creativity. Life is all about constantly learning and the course has pushed me to experiment with design and metals in all forms.
Lesley experiments with pewter, copper, bronze and silver at present, and intends to experiment with gold in future. She loves all aspects of the process, especially press forming and piercing, which is surprising, as she had never used a piercing saw before starting her degree!
In the last year she was fortunate to be selected as an award winner by the British Art Medal Society for her bronze medal entry ‘A View to a Krill’. This has encouraged her to participate in Pewter Live.
Lesley has used pewter to create and donate several ‘Hand medals’ which were issued to NHS workers on the front line of Covid care, as part of an international initiative amongst jewellers, as a gift of thanks for their service.
Entry description
This piece was inspired by 1920’s Art Deco repeating patterns, including M.C. Escher, who sometimes hid many birds within his repeating patterns. His designs had them flowing and following each other like a flock. In nature you see flocks such as this in murmurations or gatherings of birds in full flight creating intricate patterns. I saw one such occurrence whilst designing my piece and chose to create a Murmuration necklace.
I chose to use multiple strands so that the birds would move whilst being worn. The strands are threaded with Japanese Myuki seed beads in various hues of blue to give the impression of the colours and shadows of the sky within the flock.
