My Journey into Jewellery making Part 1

This is the story of how the jewellery making journey began. It has been a difficult task deciding where to start the narration of how I came to be making jewellery. I’d spent a long time working in an office, with some really fabulous times and others very far from good.

After 14 months or so of being unfit for work due to a breakdown, it was apparent that I could not return to the corporate environment.

The doctors advised I was suffering from PTSD.  That the anxiety and depression I was experiencing would not fully abate all the time I was trying to return to my office life.

So came the day of early retirement. I was unprepared for the grief that followed. Apparently, when circumstances rather than choice means a person leaves work they have done for years the mind / body grieves for their former selves.

If only we all could know that often there is something better and more satisfying waiting for us on the other side of the darkness.

When younger I had been a creative soul, drawing, writing poetry, sewing, embroidery and knitting being just some of my pastimes. When I went into the world of the office I poured all of my creativity into my cooking. There really wasn’t time for any other creative pastime and each gradually fell by the wayside.

Coming out of the darkness of my illness, I started to pick up old favourite activities and to investigate new.

I started to write again, to relearn embroidery stitches (long since forgotten), to draw.

I went on a course to learn basket making: absolutely fabulous. So enjoyable, using my hands to create a thing of beauty and usable too!

I did a furniture painting course using chalk paints, mixing base colours to make other colours, fun but not quite me.

Still not enough to satisfy my creative side that had been denied for too long.

Then I saw advertised a half day workshop for making silver jewellery using silver clay. This sounded exciting and different. I liked the fact that the precious metal was all reclaimed. I liked the idea that it would be possible to make something beautiful and precious from clay. My journey had begun.