a silver smith
The spaces we create and design in are unique to us all. We surround ourselves with our work, things that motivate us and items that perhaps keep us focused whilst we work away. There are of course individuals that have a rather unique place to work, that makes them somewhat different to us all, such as Daisy. I refer to her workspace as the “Weippert Touring”, or to you and I, a classic 1980’s four berth caravan. Mobile, colourful and definitely unique.
Now, we often start out in life with ideas and thoughts as to what we’d like to do in life, but often these ideas can change swiftly. Daisy’s first creative focus as such was photography she told me, so she enrolled on a degree course and based herself in Brighton. A year or so into her course she made the decision to move to Cornwall, as Brighton just wasn’t doing it for her.
She managed to transfer her course to Falmouth Uni and found herself in this lovely land.
But shortly after this, and by her own admission, she became somewhat disillusioned with the whole structure of the degree course and left Uni, even though she enjoyed certain aspects of the course, such as access to the darkroom and shooting film too.
“ There's a pull for me to explore our Cornish geology, with serpentine and quartz that’s right on our door step”
So, what was the transition from photography to where we find her today? Well, that came in the way of her sister Lucy, a silver smith herself. She opened up her workshop to Daisy where she embraced the basics, such as soldering and manipulating metal and developed her skills.
Daisy told me, “I have fond childhood memories of plunging into our mums jewellery collection”. I guess one could say there’s an element of irony in there as to where we find her today.
Daisy works out of her very unique mobile workspace, a 4 berth caravan that’s hidden away deep in the Cornish countryside. Daisy refers to her jewellery as a “refined boho style” body of work and she is constantly developing her business. Stone settings is another area she’s using and exploring, She told me “ There's a pull for me to explore our Cornish geology, with serpentine and quartz that’s right on our door step”. The stones that she’s currently using are the likes of tigers eye, moonstone, aquamarine, laramar & labradorite within her designs, adding a host of colour and tones to her jewellery.
The fact that Daisy is still well into photography gave me an element of nervousness when we met up and I set about documenting her. This was indeed my first experience of shooting someone in a 80’s caravan, but I loved it. I do hope you approve of how I saw and documented you that day Daisy and thank you for being you, creative, colourful and most of all, relaxed….RD
