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Sandy Mitchell

Artist's Profile

Whilst living in Alaska I learnt the craft of beadwork and enjoyed the weaving of thread with glass beads, when I relocated to Scotland I discovered the pleasure of working with willow to create baskets.
The culmination of a lifetime of making, has led me to weaving with wire and including glass beads and other materials like rubber within the jewellery I make, which are echoes of previous passions.                             
I was selected as one of 15 Scottish makers to exhibit at the G8 Conference at Gleneagles.  My jewellery is now in the collections of Mrs Putin and Mrs Barossa. 

I have taken part in exhibitions throughout Scotland and England over the past 10 years as well as having my work in the National Museum of Scotland and Chatsworth House. Today, I live and work in North Devon, from a studio with breathtaking vistas of the sea and sky where the scenery has given my jewellery a lighter, brighter touch.
 

Artist's Statement

I revel in the fact that wire can be so colourful and versatile. Appreciating, as I design the jewellery, the various influences of my extensive travelling and my love of textiles, which manifests itself in the colour and weave of my work.  The Moorish architecture and delicate fretwork screens of Andalucía and Morocco with the bright textiles of Asia are immediately translated into wire to be worn as adornment of the female form.

I have always enjoyed the art of making something beautiful with my hands and that remains with me today as I use traditional tools and my hands to form and manipulate the wire I create with.   As a child I would play with cloth and fibres at my mother’s knee and realise now that my whole life has been connected in some way with the woven form.             

Materials used in my work

A mixture of silver-plated and enamelled copper wire in a palette of 16 colours and finished with silver clasps and earwires.