Our featured Artist Member for May is Shimara Carlow. Born in a remote coastal area in West Cork, Southern Ireland, a childhood fascination for collecting shells, stones, mermaid’s purses, feathers and seed pods found along the seashore has been the inspiration for her work.
Shimara’s jewellery has been inspired by natural forms, primarily seedpods and she has created a body of work based on pod like structures. She uses silver, 18ct gold and precious stones to create her jewellery.
My work has always been inspired by nature and I love trying to capture organic form and texture, more recently my work is also inspired by the vast array of amazing gemstone that I am able to source, and I love assembling them into precious one off pieces of jewellery.
My workspace has always been chaos! I am so messy in my studio, with a complete inability to keep it neat or tidy! For years my studio has been a converted building in my garden, which was at least lovely and light, if a little cold in winter, but it is currently a cold a draughty garage, as we are renovating, so I am having to make do for a little while. I love working from home, as I often don’t get going until later in the day, and it allows me to just pop in if I feel inspired or want to try out an idea
I think my favourite was this ring stack, a client asked me to remodel her amazing collection of diamonds, creating a stack with over 20 diamonds! We even added in some extra champagne diamonds! I loved the collaboration of working on something new with a client, and I feel like it took my work in a new direction, after this commission I started embracing precious stones in a big way!
I have always loved the work of Disa Allsopp and Kayo Saito, their use of form and texture is beautifully subtle and their work is so tactile.
A collection of Shimara’s work is available to purchase online and in the gallery