Craft Gallery Jeweller Of The Month : Jess Withington

The Ropewalk Craft Gallery is an ever changing display of the best in contemporary craft. Representing over 200 makers from throughout the country and beyond, it features an extensive collection of ceramics, glassware, textiles, jewellery and more.

Jeweller Of The Month

Penny Warren

Penny Warren is a designer of contemporary colourful jewellery in mixed metals and has been a maker for over 30 years in her shared workshop in Brighton, Sussex. She graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic with a BA Honours in Designer Craftmanship and took up woodturning for several years before becoming a jeweller in the early 1990s.

After a journey of experimenting with wood, copper and brass patination, she began to use anodised aluminium exclusively in her work in the year 2000. She hand-prints and dyes the aluminium using mono-printing, screen-printing and/or freehand techniques, complimenting this with roll-milled silver which is sometimes oxidised. Nature can be a direct inspiration in the designs, but she is also drawn to simple geometric shapes that express the colours and textures to their best advantage.

She finds her ideas grow organically through the process of play, and her designs are constantly evolving as the metal inspires her to explore its potential. All the components of the jewellery she makes by hand and works to small batch production selling through shops and galleries all over the U.K.