At the bench with Sophie Grace Jewellery
Sophie is the maker behind Sophie Grace Jewellery and creates handcrafted jewellery, inspired by nature, using traditional jewellery techniques. We met up with Sophie to learn more about her inspirations and how she juggles parenthood with following her passion.
It’s one of the hottest days of the year, but despite the sweltering temperatures Sophie exudes an effortless positivity. Balancing her youngest on her hip, she guides us to where her bench is set up in a small studio at the bottom of the garden.
Sophie’s jewellery is rich with opals & Dentritic Agates, the kind of stones that you can disappear into. She grew up first in Australia and then moved to Devon, by the sea, which has inspired her love for stones that reflect the natural world from which they were formed.
“As a child I couldn’t understand how something so beautiful could come from the ground - it didn’t make sense to me and I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. They have such beautiful colours and reflections”
“I discovered these dendritic agates a couple of years ago which I thought were just really beautiful, I know they aren’t for everyone. Initially I thought they were kind of fossilised trees and foliage”, she explains “but it’s inclusions from impurities in the rock that create the patterns. They remind me of tree formations and the countryside.”
“Everything is quite scaled up and mass produced these days, everything is the same. I like the idea of jewellery being more special and one of a kind or limited edition. I love opals and dendritic agates because you are going to find it very difficult to find another one that’s exactly the same. You may find similar, but not the same.”
A self-confessed hoarder, Sophie rifles through her jewellery collection, her hands decorated in small stacks of her own rings. She pinpoints growing up in Devon as to where her collecting began, gathering shells, and rummaging through charity shops. “This was a time when no one was really charity shopping, so you could find some really nice stuff. My favourite charity shops were the grimiest because everyone else was too grossed out to go in them, but thats where the best finds were”.
Whilst Sophie’s inspirations come from unexpected places, seeing them manifested in her creations makes so much sense. Her love for Victorian morning jewellery is visible in her work now; the dendritic agates look like mini portraits.
“Victorian collections had a lot to do with nature, like all the little bugs and the terrariums, and things like that it’s all very Victorian.” She jokes she was born in the wrong era and then quickly takes it back, “What a grim era!”
Sophie’s journey into jewellery has been an unconventional one but her inspiring, self-motivated approach and eagerness to learn has elevated her skillset to what is it today. She quickly realised her university course in fashion promotion wasn’t for her and ironically it was at a house party where she learned of the jewellery training course that changed the direction of her career.
She lays out some beautiful examples of fabric she has cast in metal to create delicate, sculptural forms whilst reflecting that the jewellery course wasn’t the perfect fit – how she had felt torn between wanting to make wearable jewellery that meant something and the highly conceptual artistic pieces that were encouraged by the tutors.
“I perhaps didn’t take on the internships that I wanted because they didn’t pay at all and I needed to pay my rent; they wouldn’t even cover travel. I think it’s terrible but that’s another conversation.”
After she graduated Sophie got her first bench job at a jewellers, where she really started learning. “Then I got pregnant with Alba.”
“I was like fuck - I don’t know anywhere near enough, I’m having a baby, I’m going to be out of work, and probably not going to go back to where I am now.”
“So that is when I got my own bench and whilst Alba was sleeping, I would just start working on bits that I wanted to wear and ideas that I had going round in my head. So, I guess that’s when that started. I feel like it’s been a very slow process for me.”
Having just had her second child, time away from the bench has left Sophie brimming with ideas, and our conversation naturally ebbs and flows with her future plans for her work; “going back to basics and who I am and what I am inspired by, things I want to do.”
“I don’t want to be a trend; I want to be something that is forever. Hopefully people know where I’m coming from. I want my purchases to have meaning, and be something that you think about before buying, even if it’s just a treat for yourself. When picking out a piece, if you get some feeling from it, that means something.”
I think also in terms of the sustainability element as well, it makes sense now to be more mindful about the way you are shopping, to buy less but buy better.
The conversation naturally segways into how she loves the idea that jewellery that can be melted down into something else to be treasured and plans to incorporate this into her future practice.
“It just makes sense to recycle stuff. It is such a waste being sat in a jewellery box. For what? Just to sit there forever and not be worn? That just feels like such a shame doesn’t it. And I think that ties in quite well with what I want and where I want my work to go as well, I mean there is nothing more sustainable than using old jewellery that you’ve got, sitting not being worn.”
Sophie has recently been enjoying the messy nature of working with wax, exploring the tactility of raw file marks within gold. With rumours of a new signet ring collection on the horizon we are excited to see where her journey takes her. Watch this space.
