Having designs

ELEGANT and intricate - that's the best way to describe the beautiful pieces crafted by young York jeweller Sarah Cilia. Inspired by embossed wallpaper found in stately homes, Sarah set about creating a collection combining ornate and decorative patterns with simple geometric shapes.

Central to her latest work are brooches featuring a square of embossed porcelain in a silver frame with a flourish of silver swirls in the corner. This theme continues in another range of brooches featuring masses of tiny swirls woven together in either 18ct gold or silver. Similar pieces are also available as rings, with the mass of silver or gold swirls forged in a large disc which slips over the pinky finger and circles out to the side of the hand.

Another hallmark of Sarah's collection is her interchangeable earrings. These feature a range of small pieces which can be worn separately or in a variety of combinations to create different looks.

If you've never seen anything like it, that's because you never have seen anything like it. Sarah is breaking new ground in jewellery making, combining traditional skills with industrial processes to create pieces evoking the past but with a contemporary feel.

And at 23 and newly graduated from the Jewellery School of the University of Central England in Birmingham, Sarah is already making a name for herself.

"I've got a meeting with Wedgewood next week," says Sarah. "They saw my work at the New Designer's Exhibition in London and want to commission me to do a piece for the re-opening of their Bond Street store."

You would not normally associate Wedgewood with jewellery, but because Sarah uses porcelain in her pieces, she is bringing together these two worlds.

As a child, Sarah was always making stuff. "I once took apart a clock, which amazed the family," says Sarah, who is half Maltese.

After leaving All Saints School, she spent four years at York College doing a design and crafts courses, specialising eventually in jewellery making. From there, she worked for Minster Goldsmiths in Shambles and at the Pyramid Gallery in Stonegate. When Minster Goldsmiths moved to Harrogate, she began working for TCJ Designs in Stonegate. But after two years of churning out commercial work, she was bored.

"It was mass production on a small scale, making the same designs over and over again," said Sarah, who decided to further her jewellery studies on the degree course at Birmingham. "I knew I wanted to make lavish, delicate, really beautiful pieces that were really expensive and different, but to make an affordable, bread and butter range too."

Birmingham gave her the chance to do just that. She was able to hone her own style: the distinctive mix of the fragile yet functional. Better still, the jewellery school was next door to an innovation centre where the latest manufacturing techniques were being advanced.

"I approached them to learn how to use their machines," says Sarah. So she learnt how to use a laser welder and a computer-generated milling machine, which enabled her to emboss her labyrinthine designs on to precious metals.

Her university work has already amassed a collection of prizes and Sarah has been invited to show it at exhibitions and galleries across the country.

Now living back in her flat off Huntington Road, she is busy forging contacts in the trade and looking for more opportunities and outlets to display and sell her work, which costs upwards of £100.

The Pyramid Gallery in Stonegate stocks some pieces, as does the Green Man Gallery in Pocklington. In the meantime, Sarah is back at TCJ Designs, working part-time, and gathering ideas for a new collection which she will start work on in February. She also takes commissions.

"I'm always designing in my head," she says. "I find the actual process of making jewellery therapeutic. It's very intricate and takes patience, but I can just switch off while the world around me carries on."

To find out more about Sarah Cilia's work email her on sarahjanecilia@hotmail.com

Updated: 09:24 Tuesday, July 29, 2003