I make through my ‘translators’. We work and exhibit at my home in East London. At first my ‘translators’ were Lucie Gledhill, Anna Wales and Laura Ngyou; now they are Rachel Jones and Carola Solcia. They have become my hands as my own don't work any more. I ask for a sense of a hand behind the work rather than striving for mechanical perfection. This is a hard line to tread; the work must never look badly made but be confident and intended.
In Robert McFarlane's The Wild Places he says that “true wildness is hard to find any more but it is still there in the tiny plants, mosses and lichens that live between rocks and tussocks. They are complete worlds in themselves.”
I hope that my jewellery might be like that. I use diamond beads and small silver and gold pieces secured either side of a drilled out plate to build up these landscapes. The underside, where the wires are balled with the torch, becomes the roots as if a section of earth has been pulled from the ground.
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Credits
Photography by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
Website design by Karen Crane
Romilly’s jewellery is created using gold and silver and precious jewels that sparkle and catch the light in a way impossible to show here in photographs. The best way to choose jewellery is to view and handle it in person.
Romilly exhibits at Goldsmiths' Fair every year in early autumn.
Goldsmiths’ shows the best fine jewellers and contemporary silversmiths creating and making in the UK today. The Goldsmiths’ Company exists to support the craft and trade for the long term, and has done for the last seven centuries!
You can also see Romilly’s work by arranging a visit to her studio in Stepney, a few minutes walk from Stepney Green underground station.
Please subscribe to get news of her next events.
The word Newfoundland has become a metaphor for all my work, along with the making of it.
It seems to be an uplifting word, three words, each one with its distinct meaning. The actual island is an extraordinary place, remote but abundant in the small wilderness landscapes that inspire me.
Africa cincinnata
Post Medieval thimble; 18 carat gold.
Aurum superfusum
Mediaeval beehive thimble; 18 carat gold; part of Roman medical instrument.
Cometa virgata
Post Medieval thimble; striped sea urchin spines.
Margarita longa; Margarita parva
Post Medieval thimbles; stick pearls.
Spina lavendula
Medieval thimble; sea urchin spines.
Silva gledhillii
Post Medieval thimble; heat oxidised silver.
Rubinus ngyouii
Post Mediaeval thimble; rubies; 18 carat gold.
Alvarium reptans
Mediaeval beehive thimble; 18 carat gold; quartz beads.
Gravida walesii
Mediaeval beehive thimble; Roman melon bead, 23 carat gold; Tahitian pearl (inside).
Thesaurus occultus
Mediaeval thimble; pearls; 18 carat gold.
Adamus czarneckiana
Post Medieval thimble; rough black diamonds.
Arcus sapphirinus
Post Medieval thimble; sapphires.
Ramus abundans
Post Medieval thimble; branch from a sea fan; 18 carat gold.
Crispata longus and Crispata brevis
Post Medieval thimbles; fine silver; 18 carat gold; coral beads.
Fila cupressa
Post Medieval thimble; copper.
Ova aureolum
Post Medieval thimble; 18 carat gold.
Uva argentea
Post Medieval thimble; heat oxidised silver; coral from a vintage necklace.
Adamus aspratilis
Post Medieval thimble; rough diamonds; silver.
Incrementum subtil
Medieval thimble; silver.
Radix splendens
Post Medieval thimble; sea fan root.
Polypus corallinus
Post Medieval thimble; coral from a vintage necklace.
Spira argentea
Post Medieval thimble; heat oxidised silver.
Callaina meloformis
Post Medieval thimble; 7 Roman melon beads, 23 carat gold; silver.
