Nancye Church Jewellery

I have made and sold jewellery in many different places but, having recently moved to the Isle of Wight, I feel I have found roots in the sand of our many wonderful beaches.

I was born in Canada, grew up in Malta then came to the UK for my degree in Jewellery/Design. A short placement year in the workshop of the iconic Royal Jeweller Andrew Grima and I soon found the first of many (currently fifteen…) workshops in Clerkenwell, London.

But a workshop is obviously only a means to an end – it is the design and the manufacture of jewellery that emerges from this process that matters most. My initial inspiration of mid-twentieth century costume jewellery and antique jewellery has progressed through many collections according to the inspiration I found wherever I have been located. In Sidmouth it was ancient artifacts inspired by my archaeological husband (ORB range). From recent years back in Malta came SEA URCHIN (initially a very special commission) and STANDING STONE was inspired by the Neolithic temples. The rubble walls of Malta soon morphed into Hadrian’s wall in Cumbria and my STONEWALL rings were directly sourced from the red sandstone walls in and around Brampton.

As a jeweller I have some understanding of gemstones and this, in Cumbria, became an obsession due to the plethora of mines and the geological make-up of the county. This was the beginning of STRATA which I paired with a technique remembered from college to form the coloured layers. Hubble and now the James Webb Space Telescope have been the source of a more recent collection, PLANETS. I have experimented with techniques and materials and generally enjoyed myself playing with unusual metals and textures. BEADSCAPES came from being away from my bench during lockdown. Using beautiful Japanese glass beads and silk cord, I wanted to ‘paint a landscape with beads’ having seen so much of the streets and fells around Keswick during our permitted walks.

The Isle of Wight is now my current muse. I have a lot of new ideas from walking the landscape, some of which will be part of the BEADSCAPE range (Solent by Day, Cowes Week, etc). My latest obsession is, of course, fossil hunting and ideas are beginning to form so watch this space …