Sharon McSwiney

Working in both precious and non-precious metals, such as copper and brass, she creates jewellery and metalwork which is distributed widely throughout the UK. Sharon's designs feature humorous characters and animals often with a theme. She is inspired by folk art, children's illustrations, textiles and a love of gardening!

The latest pieces have evolved due to a love of pattern and colour. A move away from batch production figurative and themed pieces to concentrate purely on creating different textures and more experimental pieces, not worrying how they will look but making each section individually. When a variety of pieces has been made different arrangements are tried to discover which sections work best next to each other. The overall effect is to create a metal 'patch-work' with all the separate linked pieces working as a whole. Each time the metalwork is viewed another detail is discovered – not everything is obvious immediately.

The techniques used to produce this work include etching, fusing, punched decoration, deliberately melting areas, embossing, hammering textures and heat colouration on the copper, brass and silver. Each piece is unique as it is not possible to re-create the effects from the heating of the metal. The aim is not to produce quantities of similar sections but to constantly evolve new effects on the metal. Currently the only restriction is with the size of the individual pieces of metal – limited to enable heating properly to solder. The completed pieces could be very large indeed if many sections were joined together.

Prices range from: £26 - £63

Squirrel Brooch

Star Earrings

View all jewellery by Sharon McSwiney

cambridge contemporary crafts

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