Mhari McMullan, the mastermind behind the Welcome Home store in Glasgow’s CCA, gives us an overview of their first Meet Your Maker event with Soizig Carey. Welcome Home will be running a series of six Meet Your Maker events with us, so make sure to catch the next one, on Saturday 19 November with Object Company! Take it away, Mhari.
Soizig Carey is a designer/maker based in Glasgow, specialising in contemporary handcrafted jewellery and objects. Soizig’s work is heavily influenced by narratives, architecture and graphics; integrating traditional and modern craft techniques. Using casting and etching processes, Soizig applies two-dimensional imagery to precious metal forms which can be worn or serve as meaningful objects.
On Thursday 13 October, Welcome Home hosted the preview of Soizig’s new jewellery collection – Estética. The exhibition, in Soizig’s words,
“explores geometric formulas, rotating movements and principally, the circle. The circle is related to the divine: a simple circle has, since ancient times, represented eternity, since it has no beginning and no end.”
“explores geometric formulas, rotating movements and principally, the circle. ‘The circle is related to the divine: a simple circle has, since ancient times, represented eternity, since it has no beginning and no end.’”.
It was wonderful to see what she has been hard at work creating. A lot of time and effort has gone into realising a beautiful collection of contemporary jewellery in gold and silver. It was a great launch night and Soizig’s timeless pieces have been well received by our customers since.
We were really fortunate to have Soizig back to Welcome Home as our resident jeweller for the day on Saturday 29 October, for our first Meet Your Maker event with Craft Scotland. Obviously, a shop in an arts centre is a totally different space to work in than a jewellery studio! Without a bench or tools it is difficult to share techniques, so we looked at a different part of the process. No less important; the focus of the day was Soizig’s ideas and inspiration.
I love getting a glimpse into someone else’s thought process, so this was really interesting and an ideal start to our Meet Your Maker event series. Soizig set up her space with sketchbooks, books and research including her favourite images and most precious sources of inspiration. These were shared with invited visitors who knew about the event as well as customers who were lucky enough to stumble across it on the day. It was an intimate insight into a maker’s mind and it felt really special to bring a taste of her studio environment into our retail space for the day.
Soizig worked on ideas for a new pair of earrings created especially for the event, which can be won via both of our Instagram profiles - @soizigcarey and @_welcome_home_
All you have to do is like the competition video and follow if you aren’t already. We can’t wait to see the finished pair! The winner will be announced at our next Meet Your Maker event with Object Company on 19 November.
It feels fitting to bring this full circle and end with a quote from the maker herself:
“It has been such a pleasure to preview the new Estética collection at Welcome Home within the CCA. Welcome Home is an integral part of the design community in Glasgow and so it made perfect sense to feature the work here. Estética explores geometric formulas, rotating movements and principally, the circle, as both contemporary jewellery and objects. It is inspired by principles in both design and art, so it was important to have the freedom to display it in a space which celebrates both.”
Thanks Mhari! Remember you can catch Object Company at Welcome Home on Saturday 19 November 2016.
