Quazi Design, handmade in Swaziland, the cooperative recycles waste magazines, employing local ladies to design and craft jewellery and household goods. The artizans create one of a kind pieces to make a social impact. The company empowers women through skill sharing and a living wage.
The Quazi range includes colourful jewellery and household goods, including bowls and lamp shades. Oriel Bodfari Gallery Ltd is proud to stock items produced by Quazi design.
Debbie Nairn is a sculptor inspired by nurturing nature. Creating adornment for the body, home and garden is the focus of Debbie’s work and her jewellery creations are stunning.
The Clwydian Hills of Denbighshire, North Wales are the inspiration for my current work. The constant changes that the seasons bring along with man’s presence on the landscape, since the first Iron Age forts, to modern day farming. I am interested in the scars left on the hills by industry and by how quickly these abandoned places are ‘healed’ by nature.
Initially interested in Raku firing and the many colour variations I was able to produce, I am currently using an electric kiln and a limited colour palette of mainly oxides, believing that in my current work, less is more.
I make bespoke contemporary jewellery, mainly from semi-precious and precious metals. As well as a travelling collection I design commission pieces that are tailored to the customer’s wants and needs. I am passionate about making contemporary jewellery affordable for all. My work is organised into collections of jewellery, each of which is based on a specific theme or brief.
I love to work with metal. There is something very satisfying about moulding a solid, non-malleable material into an object or component of my choosing. I use nature and natural circumstances a lot as inspiration. I consider these to be fluid things – always changing. I like to capture a snippet of that moment and mould the material to recreate it into a wearable piece.
My intention is always to create a fantastic piece of well finished jewellery. I like to create beautiful items that are always affordable.
Joanne graduated in 2004 from the North Wales School of Art and Design with a BA Hons in Applied Arts. Since graduating she has set up a studio in Cheshire. Working on her range of anodised aluminium jewellery, she is inspired by colours and patterns found in nature. She takes images of flora and fauna which are the starting point of her design process. The textures, patterns and structures inform the materials which she selects for printing onto the metal with dyes and inks. A chosen palette of subtle or vibrant background dyes and then applied and mixed freely on the surface, the hues, tones and blends created make each piece unique.
Skeleton leaves, insect wings, tree bark, peacock feathers and the silhouette of winter tree branches against sunsets feature in my recent work. Each piece is hand printed, dyed and crafted by me in my studio.
Landscape has always been the primary inspiration for my work. Man’s interaction with the land, the marks he makes on it, combined with a fascination in geology and the ‘anatomy’ of the land, have been of prime importance to me.
I am interested in the interface between engineering and nature and the resulting aesthetic tensions – awareness of the ancient forces of land formation being incised by forces controlled by man. There are also archaeological and time based references.
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