Designer and maker Niki Green lives in the rugged and beautiful Duchy of Cornwall. She collects natural objects, such as seashells, leaves and flowers, from the Cornish landscape around her to produce incredibly detailed handmade jewellery finely made from high quality sterling silver.
“Cornwall has a feeling of wildness even though it has lots of summer visitors. It’s a very harsh landscape of cliffs and sea and wind-blown trees. You can see and feel the elements which have shaped it. I live in an extremely windy part of Cornwall so you can certainly feel it.”
The work begins with a natural found object, which a very detailed and accurate handmade mould is taken from to create a life-size prototype. This is cast in sterling silver to produce a solid silver piece of Cornish jewellery which retains the qualities of the original.
“I work from natural objects which I find beautiful. It gives a sense of purpose to all my wanderings, I’m always looking out for the right thing when I’m on the beach or walking in the woods. I like things with interesting surface texture as well as form. It’s very important to me to keep the detail of the original so I take a very accurate mould and this serves as the starting point for a prototype made using a mixture of moulding and modelling. The prototype is then cast in very high quality sterling silver.”