Well, 2015 was a great year. It started with a week at the Goldsmiths’ Centre learning all things business, and meeting makers from across the country who I will continue to keep tabs on for the rest of my life. And continued the year by developing new work for New Designers: One Year On and Goldsmiths’ Fair. I walked away from the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council Awards with two accolades in my hands, in particular a joint award with Nan Nan Liu and Hazel Thorn presented by the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers. I was able to use an Entreprise Initiative Grant from the University of Edinburgh to travel to the 2015 Society of North American Goldsmiths Conference in Boston where I exhibited my work and met so many amazing people. And I was also able to use a grant from Creative Scotland to travel to Italy to study alloying gold with Giovanni Corvaja in a blazingly hot July, as well as travelling to the Isle of Iona to do some visual research in a stark and windy November. I took part in the first annual Elements Fair, here in Edinburgh, organised by the Incorporation of Goldsmiths and Lyon and Turnbull Auctionhouse, which was an amazing affair which can only become more amazing as it grows. I made my first appearance at Goldsmiths’ Fair, which was an amazing experience that was more than I could have hoped for. I met so many amazing makers and supporters of our field. While I have been here I have also had the pleasure of helping to set up exhibitions for both Craft Scotland and Visual Arts Scotland, and have loved meeting and working with the wonderful people who keep these organisations running. I finished up a yearlong residency at Edinburgh College of Art that I was sad to say goodbye to but have really enjoyed getting to know all the lovely people at Process Studios.
2016 is a new adventure. So far this year I have enjoyed invigilating the Exhibiting Societies of Scottish Artists three annual exhibitions in the Royal Scottish Academy building, as well as helping to hang the jewellery for the Visual Arts Scotland exhibition, which is always so much fun! I have held on to old friends and made so many new ones while preparing to leave the country. I got in contact with Karen Wallace, a wonderful engraver, who is exhibiting at Goldsmiths’ Fair for the first time this year! She taught me to engrave and I enjoyed spending my Saturdays with her for three months. I am continuing to engrave, because I love it! It’s a skill I should have learned eons ago. I took a ten week physics for dummies class at the University’s Lifelong Learning programme, which was great and a little silly all at the same time! And I finally figured out how to go to the gym regularly, although I’m struggling with that at the moment. Most importantly I purchased tickets and attended the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play in London’s West End in previews which was amazing. I have now moved back to the states which is involving a lot of stress and craziness, but the end of the tunnel is near and I am looking forward to the future. I have witnessed a good friend’s wedding and my little cousin’s first birthday and my Grandmother’s 80th birthday and life is good.
I have loved all the people I have met in the UK and have had so much fun at all the events, fairs, exhibition openings and projects I have been a part of while I was there. Hopefully I will be back in the next few years to visit and say hello. So I just want to say THANK YOU! For making the time I spent in Great Britain amazing.
Life After My MFA 