Say Hello to… Shutter Jewellery

craft, Hand Crafted, JewelleryNo comments

Today we look forward to welcoming Shutter Jewellery, joining our fair for the first time on October 25th at Brighton Open Market. Their photographic gothic style jewellery is just perfect for our spooky Halloween themed fair!

Please introduce yourself and your brand….

My name is Sophie and my brand is Shutter Jewellery. I am a keen photographer and I also love making, and wearing, unusual things which is how Shutter Jewellery was born. All the jewellery pieces are based around photographs, which could be transferred onto acrylic, framed in metal framed and hung from ribbon or shrunk down to a tiny size and used for stud earrings. I’m always experimenting with new ways to use the images.

How would you describe your style and your creations?

A little out of the ordinary! My pieces are not overly wacky, but the other day I did have someone come up to my stall and call my stuff ‘weird’. She didn’t mean it in a complimentary way, but I decided to take it as such. If I was making something you could buy just anywhere there wouldn’t be any point. I do understand that means it’s not to all tastes.

While I use both colour and black and white images in my work, I think the monochrome photos are my favourite and I love to use gunmetal findings and black ribbons to compliment the blacks and greys in the photo. They end up with a gothic look, which is quite me.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I love the stages that go into making a piece of jewellery, each one is a challenge in itself but in makes it really rewarding when piece is finished. Firstly going out and taking the photographs – still probably my favourite part but equally then trying to decide which images would have most appeal and what looks right on a small enough scale to be used for jewellery. I might get all the way to cutting the printed image out and decide actually it doesn’t work, so when it does it’s a real sense of achievement.

What can we expect to find on your stall at The Fairy Tale Fair Brighton this October? And are you looking forward to taking part?

I can’t wait, it looks like it’s going to be a great event. I’ll be bringing brooches, necklaces, earrings and hairslides featuring all sorts of images from bicycles to tigers. I’ve also got some button badges. Lots of kids seem to love my jewellery but it’s a bit too grown up so I made some badges of the most popular designs which seem to have gone down very well so far. I’ll also have some prints on show so people can see the original photographs. I love coming up with the design of the stall almost as much as the things themselves and like to change it up each show I do, so please come along and see what I come up with for the Fairytale Fair!

Do you have any plans or ambitions for the future?

Just to make Shutter Jewellery a success and to continue creating new designs. It’s still quite a new venture so there’s lots to do. I’d also like another dog and to visit Madagascar to photograph an Aye-Aye.

Do you have a motto or inspirational quote?

I tweeted one the other day, apparently Coco Chanel (but I don’t know if that’s true). It was simply ‘My life didn’t please me so I created my life.’ I think sometimes when a project isn’t working or you’re standing on a cold market stall with no sales you have to stop and think would I really rather still be in an office endlessly filling in spreadsheets for someone else? The answer is always no.