Amanda - Designer and Jewellery Maker

I was born in Yorkshire in the UK and moved to London to study in 1990.  London is also where my journey with ceramics began. I loved my first encounter with porcelain and I still love working with it.  I enjoy the feel of it and am constantly amazed at how it can be manipulated and transformed from something very plain into something really creative and beautiful.  Porcelain is a very refined clay and clay has been used as a medium for centuries.  Archaeological digs often find clay pieces which were originally simple pieces of jewellery.  I'm excited by this, as I feel I am still in touch with one of man's very early forms of creativity.

I now live in Cumbria in the UK.  The Cumbrian landscape and the Lake District are a rich source of inspiration for my collections.  There is so much beauty here and that beauty is both in the dramatic landscape and in simple things like moss growing on stones or the ever changing reflections on the lakes.  

It's a precious thing in this age of mass production to give or wear something that is individual and handmade and I enjoy being able to create jewellery that is unique, unusual and colourful. I started making jewellery for myself and began Something Precious after many requests from friends who asked me to make jewellery for them.

Something Precious was inspired by my desire to fuse the many different passions and beliefs in my life: my passion to be creative in ceramics; my belief that all women should know what real beauty is; my passion to do something about the injustice of women and children forced into prostitution and the sex industry and my Christian beliefs which infuse every aspect of my life.  One day I looked at a piece of jewellery I had made and thought about the contrast of my life and those sold into a life of prostitution.  I choose how I want to live and what I wear, choose my jewellery and have jewellery to match different outfits. Their lives do not involve choice, only control and abuse.  I realised that as part of designing and creating jewellery I could also raise awareness and make a difference for these women.  It feels like a drop in the ocean, but I believe many small drops make the ocean and I know I am not alone in my desire to change such injustice in the world.

Our vision at Something Precious is to create something precious and do something precious.  See our vision to read more about this.