In this fourth interview, jewellery maker Carol Wade recalls the beginnings of her love of making and gives insight into her inspirations, pieces included in the exhibition The Colour Factory Artists: The Every Day and the dynamics that make the Colour Factory so special.
How did you get into jewellery making?
I started making jewellery when I was in my 20s. I went to Italy and always had a love of old pieces. There was a pair of earrings there that I completely fell in love with. They were old gold Venetian earrings, and I couldn't fault them, and I just thought, I'm going to make those one day.
Going forward, I had a job working in television for 20 years. At the end of that, I decided that I didn't want to commute to London anymore. I met Rosie one day; I knew her at a dinner party, and she invited me to join the girls at the Colour Factory. I met Jenny Muncaster 10 years ago, and she asked me to come and take a space with them. Funnily enough, the space that I took was a space from one of my old teachers, Lindsey Mann. She was the first person I went to learn with at Farnham. I just loved what she did and wanted to do it too. I went to the Colour Factory and started making jewellery.
Please could you tell us more about your practice, what inspires your designs, and how you work?
I’m an outdoor swimmer, and I love looking at trees and the surrounding countryside. I wanted to try and emulate a bit of the texture in my jewellery, which is why I like layering metal and creating movement on metal surfaces.It's really expensive to work with silver and gold these days, particularly, and although I've got a website, I've never used it because I like making one-off pieces rather than holding stock. I make things to order. I've had repeat orders for pieces, and lots of my jewellery has gone to friends in America. It's really hard to get into someone's mind sometimes about what they want. Usually they rely on me for inspiration, and I suggest things, and that's how we collectively end up with a piece.
Whether it's a necklace or a bracelet, I like making cuffs because you can get texture into them as a flat piece of metal, and then bend it to the shape you want. I like using shiny precious stones, but the ones that have just been cut from the original rock found in many different countries. They're a bit edgy and have a rough surface. I don't particularly like polished things. I've got a completely eclectic taste in jewellery for myself, so I kind of look at what I'm wearing and then I try and add things everywhere. There will be one or other piece of my jewellery somewhere that I wear.
When I first started making jewellery, I wanted to make statement pieces and do quirky things, and no one really got that, but now people prefer things to be big and bold. That's where I come in, really. I started doing that a long time ago, but that's always been my interest, and I can't make things that are intensely complicated or take me hours because I lose my patience with them. Every time I make something, I'm my own worst critic. So often I will make things twice just because I want to perfect it in some way.
My children have a lot of my jewellery and wear it every day. One of them breaks stuff all the time. I'm constantly mending things. But then they turn into something else. I try to create new pieces with the broken parts. When you're melting metal, you can end up doing something that didn't look the way you expected it to, but you actually quite like it. That is how inspiration is born.
What is it like being part of the Colour Factory?
We're such a wonderful group. We bounce ideas off each other, and we're there for each other, and I think that's so important. I love them. They are like my extra siblings, and it is nice that we're a bunch of women because girl power is quite a tool to be reckoned with. We all have different talents, but it just goes together, and we don't clash.
I don't think we've ever clashed, any of us, which is amazing. Jenny has been there a long time, and I've got such admiration for each of them because they are all amazing artists in their own right. Emily and I do completely different things, but there's a synergy between us because Emily is such a people person and I am, but I'm much more reserved than she is.
Winning the Winchester business award was incredible. That was such an accolade, and I really felt like that was something for Jenny, who started that place 30-odd years ago; it is phenomenal for her. I'm just a baby. Who has been there for 10 years.
And so I was pleased that, yes, collectively we all achieved that. But I feel like it should be Jenny, Rosy and Rachael who were the founders, really. They've been there for the longest. But also, Emily works so hard to bring people in and really deserves this, especially as she applied to the business awards. Yeah, that was good, and that definitely made people think about us as a group.
How has the exhibition changed your perspective?
When I was looking at it all together, it was a whole different ball game because I had not seen that much of my jewellery all in one place, all lit up. It looked completely different, but it went really well with everything that the other girls had done. I didn't really have a plan when I was making things for the Arc. I just wanted colour interspersed with some silver. The theme for me was colour. Like the paintings on the walls, the colours and textures draw you into my jewellery. When you look at it, at first, you don't see everything, and then you keep looking at it, and you see it. Like the Moonstone necklace I made, when you hold it up to the light, it has an incredible blue, and you have to hold it up to see or touch it.
It has a lovely feel; it's really smooth. But it's not polished, so that is how it came out of the ground. So yeah, it was nice to be able to see it all together and see the theme between everybody's really because there is one, and you have to look for it. It's amazing. It was a thrill to see it all together for me. I felt like a grown-up. I've had lots of enquiries, although people haven't bought things here; I've had enquiries about it, which is lovely.
Carol's work accentuated by coloured mount occupied the forefront of the Colour Factory exhibition at the Arc.
Did working towards this show provide you with more inspiration?
Yes, it did actually, and it also focuses. Sometimes I am a bit of a butterfly, and my head is all over the place. I have to focus on something specific, which is why I love making things to order.
The Colour Factory: The Everyday runs until the 26th of July. Artworks are available for purchase. You can see more of Carol's fantastic works here.
