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The JQBID will be attending the brand new international show Makers Central in May together with four local Jewellery Quarter makers; B18 Leather, Glenn Campbell Jewellery, Michele White Jewellery and Tina Francis Tapestry. 

Leading up to the event, we will shed a spotlight on all of these creative businesses. You’ll learn more about the makers, from what inspires them to what they love about the Jewellery Quarter.

Today, its the turn of Glenn Campbell.  

Glenn Campbell Jewellery

Tell us about Glenn Campbell Jewellery?

I have been designing and making jewellery in Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter since 2000. The Jewellery I make is inspired by a love of nature and metalsmithing processes. The ductile quality of precious metal records the linked and ordered smithing techniques that shape its final form. It is my fascination with natural objects like pods, leaves and shells that directs this forming and the path my work takes.

The pods and leaves you see in my work are the visible tip of a deep interest in nature. It’s this inspiration that directs the over-all feel of my work, but a greater influence is that which stems from directly experimenting with the metal. There are many ways to affect precious metal to change its shape and texture. Each technique learnt increases your vocabulary of form and surface pattern. It becomes inspirational when techniques are applied in sequence. Layered, each affects the results of the others, sometimes in completely unexpected ways.

This serendipity, through experimentation or mishap, can open whole new paths of exploration, and free your creativity. It is hard, lost in a sense of wonder and excitement to be pragmatic and record the making processes. This is the joy and heartache of the craft as I have sometimes spent many hours trying to recreate those chance encounters. These forms feel like they’ve been discovered rather than created, as if they were always there, waiting to be revealed.

Why did you decide on your chosen profession? 

It was through natural selection, I followed a changing winding path through school and college that finished here. In parallel universes you will find that I am a physicist, cartographer, graphic designer, fashion designer, photographer, blacksmith and ninja warrior.

Have you got any advice for aspiring maker/designers? 

Experiment, if you know your materials and what they can do, you can design for them.

Try and record everything you do, because if you chance on something amazing it is really handy to be able to do it again.

Who or what is your most influential creative inspiration? 

I am inspired by forms I see in nature and the philosophy of design and process I received from David Frost my metals tutor at college.

What do you enjoy about working in the JQ? 

I have friends here that completely understand what it is like. Almost everything I need or want is within walking distance, except the seaside.

Finally, tea or coffee? Which one keeps you going? 

tea, Tea, TEA!!!!

To find out more about Glenn Campbell Jewellery visit his website.

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