Inside the Jewel Vault with Hannah Martin

INSIDE THE JEWEL VAULT WITH HANNAH MARTIN

JCC         I’m so excited to welcome Hannah Martin to the podcast.  Hannah is a leading designer whose fine jewellery collections emit a uniquely edgy energetic aesthetic. Hannah founded her own workshop in Clerkenwall, East London in 2006, since when her work has straddled the gender divide as well as confronting norms of beauty and function.  Hannah welcome to the podcast I can’t wait to see what you’ve got for us inside your Vault!

HM        Ah thanks it’s nice to be here.

JCC         So Hannah we’re just about emerging from lockdown, tell me what was your experience, what it’s been like for you?

HM        God it’s been a mix really.  I wish I could say that lock down happened then I got really creative. I’ve been so freaked out really, like a rabbit in the headlights.  But um but yeah it has been, once the initial trauma was over, it has been really nice actually in some ways around it I feel had we had a collection launch in the midst of everything, so that kind of kept me busy, lots of time to assess the situation I suppose

JCC         yeah that’s a good way of putting it assessing the situation, I like it, like a General campaigning, haha

HM        Absolutely, trying not to go into panic mode yeah be cool about it all

HM        Yeah it was easy to be too daunted to start with.  I think I feel like there was this pressure as well, everybody was like this is the time to write your novel, do this do that, can we just deal with the fact there’s a pandemic happening? Can we just do that and not worry about being super creative, and not be like a genius?

JCC         Not be too overachieving about things!

HM        Absolutely

JCC         Oh Hannah well, can we travel back in time do you think can we travel back to your childhood? for someone is super creative as you obviously are were you are very creative child?

HM        yes I think I was actually, or at least we did a lot of – I’ve got a little sister as well and we did spend much of our childhood like making things, and my mum always likes to remind me of the fact that I used to like to find something I could do like a like a fan factory and I’d make like 400 of them until I got completely bored of it then I think of something else. I think I roped my poor little sister into doing it so we were always making stuff, doing stuff.  Yeah it was a creative upbringing.

JCC         Yeah sounds it and were you creative at school was it something that was encouraged in your environment?

HM        My parents definitely so, I’d say school kind, I went to like a local comp and the art department wasn’t huge but obviously I kind of loved it and I did have a really great – one of my art teachers was really fab and kind of like really encouraged me but I think it was more my parents than anything else. Cos I also was quite academic as well and a lot of my, when I decided I wanted to go to art school, I had the classic teachers going on such a waste, one of them said you’ll just end up being a painter and decorator you know you should be applying to Oxford, I was like I don’t want to, I wanna go and make art, so yeah it was kind of a bit of a mix with school but yeah my folk were definitely all for it

JCC         And so with your parents’ support you went all out to try and win that place on the foundation course at St Martins’  tell us tell us what was that like?

HM        Ah it was so exciting. I’d sort of decided, so when you do an art degree, you do an, like you do a foundation year first, and then you go onto a degree so I decided I was going to apply to do foundation at St Martin’s rather than go to a local art school.  I think somebody had said to me if you do a foundation there it’s easier to get into a degree, so I came up to London and did, I’d  like made my portfolio and my dad came up with me we actually went and applied to a few like the Slade I can’t remember, a few other art schools, St Martin’s was the thing, I  totally remember getting the letter through - it was like, it was so overwhelming it was amazing, so that was kind of It then, I was off really.  Absolutely over the moon.

JCC         And obviously the degree course at St Martin’s is incredibly prestigious as you’ve said if you can get yourself onto the foundation year that sets you up nicely for entry into the degree level, hopefully, but the wonderful thing about the foundation year is you get to try a massive range of art and craft disciplines so you can really try everything can’t you - from knitting to calligraphy!

HM        Everything everything, it’s brilliant and that’s why I discovered jewellery, I mean I’m so lucky I did do that because otherwise I always say when people ask did you want to be a jewellery designer, from a young age, no I have literally no idea there was even an option until I went to St Martins, so you do you do this like literally like three days of like fashion, three days of architecture, three days a bit like all the way to the first two terms you’re just trying everything, & I did literally I’m kind looking back with rose tinted spectacles, I sort of remember almost the first moment I walked into the jewellery workshop – like AAAHHH is this real, haha, like loads of tools, loads of kit, loads of everything I just totally fell in love so yeah I specialised in that for the last term you can pick a specialism so I did that, and that was love at first sight and I went from there.

JCC         And um, and and at the time if you were living as a young woman in London what sort of influences were going on around you what was happening in your life.

HM         God I mean honestly I think that first foundation year was like seminal in my development as a human being,  when I look back at it now, there was a massive gang of us who met on that foundation year and we are still like a massive family now, and we all like work together spend a lot of time together still, I think it was such an intense experience like coming and it’s not like going to a normal university where you get put in Halls and like looked after, were given a list of the other people who didn’t have a house in London. And you basically had to call them, meet up decide if you like each other go and find a house like you said it was like really thrown in the deep end, of survival basically, so it’s that kind of um, quite intense it was quite an intense year and I think it meant that we all have an absolutely like wild ride of it.

JCC        A bit it’s less of a foundation really more like as sort of maelstrom.

HM        Completely like a foundation in life – there you go kids, go look after yourself, but it was fab!

JCC       But you loved it and you took to it immediately.

HM        Totally, absolutely yeah, absolutely loved it.

JCC        And so this led then to you being awarded your place in the degree course?

HM        Yes yes so I then yeah had obviously apply to do a jewellery degree there and got that, and I loved every minute of that too really, I just really enjoyed myself.

JCC          Where did you find your inspiration for your degree show, which was such a successful debut into the jewellery arena for you – what moulded your work?

HM         I had an amazing tutor in my second year who I’m still very good friends with, and he helped me find my way really, because I remember being a bit lost –I didn’t know what my style was, kinda like working out what you actually are, and I remember him saying to me ‘Well what do you do you actually like?  What do you do in your spare time, what turns you on?’  I was like music was my thing, and this sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll was always the thing that most excited me, and he was ‘Well do that’ and suddenly it all made total sense – I was like ‘Of course! of course I should do something I like!’ and then I got really fascinated with the idea of gender, and masculinity as well and it all kind of like came together towards the end of my second year, and I really started making the work I’m making now.

JCC         Oh Yeah that’s brilliant, so tell us about the first piece in your fantasy jewel vault Hannah.

HM         The first one I put in which is kind of referencing my ‘earlier than college’ kind of development, because I thinking about influences of childhood, and the first piece I put in, just a really small earring, which is actually from, I think it’s the fourth collection I did, and it was basically the Lost Boys film was like still is one of my favourite films of all time, me and my sister used to watch it on repeat, and pretty much recite it, and I think that’s also the reason I only have my ears pierced in one ear- I just wanted to be Kiefer Sutherland basically and a Vampire.  So that earring that I put in, a facet hanging on a hoop was like - finally made myself a dangling Kiefer Sutherland Lost Boys earring.

And so the second piece that I put in is the Spur Ring which I think is still one of the pieces that people like really know me for,  was actually a piece that I developed at St Martins,  the shape came from my degree show and it was really what I launched myself and the brand with, that’s the first collection that came out to work I was making there, so yeah that’s very very special to me, that Ring, it’s got a lot of history in it.

JCC         yeah it’s beautiful. the shape is amazing it almost looks like an archer’s ring but not, it looks like a beak, it looks like many things.

HM        yeah, I made a pair of spurs like cowboy spurs, in that final year, I forged them all, and there was a shape on the back which then inspired that ring I don’t know but

JCC         With that kind of pointy…

HM        Yeah that – I don’t know what I’d describe it, a beak.

JCC         A spur basically

HM         A spur basically – it is, I’ve named it - that’s what it is - and it kind of does a lot of,  has a lot of the kind design language I suppose - now I look back - is quite me because it’s sensual curves, there’s quit a lot of curvaceousness to it, but there’s quite a lot of hard edges and it’s quite sculptural, which I think, all those things are what I look for when I’m doing work really.

JCC         It’s such a unique form, this ring, it would detract from the lines if there were lots of gemstones - did you add any pave diamonds to it at all?

HM        yes there is there is a little bit – well I do some of them plain - but there is in the original one, just a few – the one I’ve got in front of me has a few little black diamonds just sprinkled on that lip at the top, so yeah

JCC         just on one little edge following the form of the spur as it as it flows upward to it’s sort of point

HM        Yes

JCC        t’s not a sharp point is it but it certainly not when you’d want to get too close to

HM        no absolutely it could definitely be used in self-defence if you needed to so yeah

JCC         I love that - it’s like is it adornment, is it self defence

HM        it is it armour

JCC         is it expression – obviously it is a form of expression, incredible.  So can we just go back to your first piece which is yes which is very pretty very innocent almost, so is it a sort of heart shape that is slightly faceted is there some softness to it at all

HM        Do you know it wasn’t supposed to be a heart shape although some people think it’s a bit but it’s just a little nugget of gold basically, it came from that collection is called Vincent and all my collections have this kind of story, like a character behind them that I work from, and he was this kind of Russian gangster running the streets of London, super suave and sophisticated and deadly dangerous - I had this whole kind of like scenario built up around him, and a lot of the shapes were quite angular, quite faceted, and that was just it’s just a little nugget basically with a facet lines on it, all a bit wonky, asymmetric – better than wonky – I’m quite a selfish designer to be honest, I just make things that I want to wear, and hope that other people want to wear them too.

JCC         But that’s the beauty of it, it’s kind of the point. 

HM        Yeah so that ring, the little dangly earring that’s a totally Lost Boys reference– actually in my head that’s called the Lost Boys earring

JCC         I’m really intrigued about the idea of your characters behind each of your collections. Does Vincent exist?

HM        No, only my head! I kind of make them all up.  The only one in the collection I based on a “real” character that I found was the Man Who Knows Everything series which is also Solaris and Delirium,  part of that series, that was based on a story I’d read about this chap called the Count St Germain - it’s quite an amazing story and I’d read something years and years before and it’s a been in the back of my mind and that collection I kind of dedicated to him, and he was, as legend has it, was this alchemist who discovered the elixir of life and Pushkin had written about him, actually I think it was Voltaire who described him as the Man Who Knows Everything and never dies, and there’s all sorts of rumours. I think it’s actually a cult in America that still believes he’s alive,  but he was the only one that kind of didn’t come directly from a complete fantasy in my head - all the other ones, they just grow kind of like a Frankenstein‘s monster of everything that’s in the back of my head at the time and I always think it’s kind of like a  film in my head and I make like a – I imagine the world that they’re in,  stories that happen in there, and then all the jewellery fits in that, and actually to be honest that’s a way that I discovered at art school and trying to get over the blank page syndrome of like having to come up with her a year’s worth of interesting work and that was my kind of way into it.  I’ve always loved creative writing and I read an enormous amount of stories and I love stories and losing myself in fantasy world and so that was kind of like my own private way of like working out how I can get into a collection and then it was only once I’ve started the brand and I think it was the first or second year and I’ve started working with a PR agent, and I must have mentioned a story and they were like “oh my God this is brilliant that you should tell everybody this story” but yeah I still work like that.

JCC         Mm and are you any of the characters?

HM        Oh that’s a good question I don’t think anybody’s asked me that before, they’re actually all male and they’ve all been male apart from this latest collection I’ve done is a bit different because it’s an army of characters rather than like the single character before then it was always kind of male character. I don’t know whether I’m in it. I sort of would say no but then maybe, I probably am somewhere in there, but I usually distance myself a bit.

Hannah as a student

JCC         So with your third year finished at Saint Martin’s what happened next?

HM        I think now when I look back on it,  it’s like complete naivete of youth, because I didn’t know what I was doing really, I have no idea what I was doing, no idea how to run a business, like absolutely nothing, but just jumped head first into it really, I’ve got some really great press after the degree show and I sold a few pieces and I’m just like, “I’m going to do this, I’ll just do it” and I actually did - run by this group called NESTA which is National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts,  they still exist, they run all sorts of incredible programs - it was harder getting into that than it was to get into St Martins - but the idea was to take creatives like recently graduated creatives and it was an all sorts of fields not just in jewellery, in fact there was quite a lot of people like in technology, a couple of science-based projects, but it was people that had an idea – you had to pitch it almost like it was a business plan and then once you’d got onto it, was this amazing six months – they took us away for a few weeks, we have this super intensive kind of training I suppose, where they bought in loads of people to talk to and everything from like how to make a spreadsheet, to like running a business, writing a business plan and it was building up to the fact that you could at the end pitch for investment and some of us got it and some of us didn’t, and I got some of that investment which is how I made my first collection. I went down in history as spending the money the quickest that anyone had ever spent it, cos I just bought a load of gold!  But that’s basically how I made the first 2 collections by doing that and that gave me a bit of ground-work -a little bit of how to run a business - but it was bonkers now when I think about it I am still here just about!

JCC         Haha!  Wow, and another industry experience you had early on was during your degree course, you won a place to go and train for a few months at Cartier’s workshops in Paris, didn’t you, I imagine that must have been an eye-opening experience, what was that like?

HM         that was that was kind of like the ground work for what I’m doing now because that was my first experience of luxury shall we say, like that’s mainly what I got in Paris like open my eyes completely to that world that I’d had no – I come from like a Yorkshire mining family, like there is no such thing as heirlooms,  I didn’t have jewellery, I mean that world was just not my world at all had no experience with it so it blew my mind when I went to Cartier and like you know was handling these materials. I was actually working in the high jewellery department so it’s all the like super one off pieces.  It was an amazing experience I learnt all the super traditional techniques of like painting up and you know the attention to detail, I think that’s what took mostly from that experience. 

JCC         Fantastic so you came back and you did NESTA and then you decided that you were going to with the help of your knowledge and what you’d learnt at NESTA and the support of your mentor to step out there and create your own brand

HM        Yes - yeah and I just did it really without thinking about too hard, which I always say it’s kind of naivete of youth a bit.  Obviously I thought about it and I sort of had a plan but it wasn’t really an option for me, like it was like obviously that’s what I was going to do it wasn’t a kind of like I didn’t have this as a 10 year plan of what I wanna do; is like that it was like a gut “I’ve got to do this like if I don’t do it now I’m never gonna do it” and jumping in at the deep end, so to speak, seeing how it rolled just kind of learning on the job, basically - I’m still doing that every day, to be honest!  But yeah but it was kind of - it was pretty a good start, really, I’ve got as far as I got a lot of press coverage quite near the beginning, and like people really were interested in what I was doing, so it was it was kind of a good beginning

JCC         Fantastic.  Well let me ask you what’s your third piece in the vault?

HM        Where are we at now, yeah, it’s the big shackle bangle, ‘Bid for Freedom’ and actually that that was the second collection I did that was pirate based collection and I think I picked that one just cos it’s a piece that close to my heart,  I love it I love wearing that piece, I feel it was a sort of growing up piece, in terms of my design style and actually that’s a piece – I don’t know if you know Vivienne Becker, who’s an amazing jewellery journalist and historian, but she’s

JCC         Uha, yes she is huge

HM        yeah yeah amazing she’s been a very loyal and amazing support to me. We met actually at my degree show and we’ve become really good friends over the years and she always cites that piece, she did a piece on that bangle in the Telegraph and it was my first pretty amazing press and she always cites that piece as one of her favourites and I think it’s kind of that, classic’s maybe the wrong word but it’s sort of like a nod to the kind of Cartier kind of manacles that they do and and kind of grown up jewellery but I love the fact that it’s kind of bit naughty as well.  I did a kind of double version that I sold to Coco de Mer so it’s got this kind of like erotica to it but it’s kind of like hidden, so it’s got all the like codes that I love in that piece and it was one of the kind of first like big pieces of gold I did as well, really big & heavy, so it’s really special to me. 

JCC         So this is a thick gold shackle for the wrist, with a screw bolt fastening, it’s very functional, with really clean lines, looks quite heavy - is it yellow gold?

HM        It’s yellow is yellow and it’s got orange sapphires on top of it, I’ve done a few versions: I did an amazing version of that for a male client in LA him who commissioned that in white gold and white diamonds, I’ve done different kinds for people, but yeah I love that I really love those, I mean I’m obsessive about gold, and yellow gold in particular, that’s like my favourite, and I love the richness of the colour of the orange sapphires, it’s piratical in my mind

JCC         Piratical but ultraluxury

HM        Absolutely!

JCC         And smooth and obviously the mechanism of the of the screw yeah is it must be quite an addictive sensation.

HM        Yeah and I sort of love that I guess it’s another theme that’s been going through my work is that it’s almost like industrial, engineered, and taking out something that’s quite a normal object and putting it in the context of luxury - just by making that in gold it makes it something really exciting but you kind of got this like really like industrial kind of know screw mechanism and it’s in 18 carat gold there’s something about the juxtaposition of those things, something I do quite a lot

JCC         So following on with this piece tell us about piece 4 which is a diamond ring but not like any diamond ring you’ve ever seen before

HM         Yeah it’s the Ring of Fire it’s called and I put this one in, I mean, people always say what is your favourite piece, it’s like impossible to answer because it’s like asking what is your favourite child,  but this is definitely one of my highlights for me and again because I think it does a lot of things that I try and do like in all my work. I love diamonds, I always have loved diamonds, you think look at them, and you think like how did the ground make that, they’re kind of like magical, but there’s also so overused in jewellery, they get a bit boring and you know, I kind of get a bit upset because people think of diamonds, think of luxury and actually they’re… I’m such a fan of coloured stones, they kind of get overlooked and so I’ve always had this thing, I tried not to use diamonds for quite a number of years in my work cos I just thought it was too obvious, but then I decided that I was going to challenge that and challenge myself. I did a collection of six diamond rings to kind of try and prove that you could have pieces of diamond jewellery that weren’t just about the diamond, and I think it was also because I had used diamonds in bespoke work a lot and you get people coming in and they’ve got this really fixed idea of a 3 carat D Flawless and it’s like - it doesn’t mean you love someone more by buying them like - it’s a bit like buying a designer label -  it always really frustrated me, and it was more about a stone than the actual kind of thing that held the stone, and I was like well, you can hear it shouldn’t just be about the diamond, it should be about the design, and the diamond has got significance within that design, and you need it.  So that ring was about me going okay you can use diamonds, but it’s not all about the stone it’s about how you use, and what the stones do, they’re important in the design and I feel like that one does that, and that it is still open in the centre so you see your flash through it and that’s sexy, and then it’s surrounded by the diamonds - it’s actually quite large carat weight of diamond, but they’re obviously split up into all the little ones, so you kind of get this kind of in your face diamond effect but it’s not kind of crazy over bling, well a tiny bit, but in a cool way so yeah it was just me playing around, and wanting to do something that gave diamonds a significance within the design itself

JCC         It’s beautiful it’s very sculptural it’s also quite as it’s a little bit like geology looks like a geological process.

HM        Yes yeah or like a dystopian city, it’s like a whole landscape in there, I kind of love that I’d never get bored of that ring.

JCC         So that’s item 4, and item 5 tell us about it describe it it’s a ring

HM        It’s a ring, I’m wearing it actually at the moment and it’s huge. It’s an Eagles head actually and he’s kind of like carved, so originally I hand carved it out of wax, and again it came from the same collection as the big shackle bangle, actually, which was a kind of piratical themed collection, and it’s a mixture of rose and yellow gold which has on top the Eagles head in yellow and in the base is rose, I used it to get this really subtle colour combination

JCC         isn’t that quite technically difficult to do

HM        yes yes it especially making this like because I hand carved both bits and getting them to fit really fun, never one to shy away from a challenge, technically.

JCC         it’s a beautiful effect

HM         Yeah I really love it, I do a lot of this blend of colours now, but there was quite a good story this one came from, it was actually the starting point I think of this whole collection, because it was the conversation was having with a friend who’s telling me this story about an archaeologist like an old archaeologist that she met she was describing to me, had all these tales to tell in his face, and he was wearing this massive gold Lion’s head ring, and she was fascinated by this ring and it came out of the ground, and it made such an impression of me that quite visual picture, that whole pirate story had grew out of that little conversation, so all I wanted to do was make this giant gold ring that a pirate might wear, and this is what came out of it.  He just has become myself lucky talisman, like this ring has been lost and found and like it has so many stories, it’s been, I think I did it in 2007 the one that I wear, he’s that old and he looks now a bit, it’s seen - like it’s got some stories to tell - but I feel naked without it, it’s like I can’t get out the house without it, something’s going to happen

JCC         so this is really special piece - a true talisman for you

HM         Absolutely a talisman for me, and I put that in as well cos that’s the thing I love about jewellery probably the most of all, you know I tell these stories when I’m making it, I told stories to myself, and then somebody else has that piece and then it starts to have its own stories with that person, and then maybe it’s past down a generation, then it has more stories and it just builds, there is something - I don’t know anything else that does that, and maybe it’s because you wear it next to your skin so much, but there is something magical about how jewellery can hold this history and build this history and you can almost feel it. 

JCC         So what about item 6 this is a piece I can’t even begin to describe it is a bangle but it’s it’s not a bangle it’s the most beautiful piece of sculpture.

HM         Ah thank you, that’s really nice, I thought I’d end with a bang.  It’s from the New Act of Rebellion collection which I’ve just launched, like I have to say this is like my crowning glory for me and sums up what I was trying to do with that whole collection.  It’s this huge - it is huge and I’m touching it now and it’s an amazing weight to it, and it’s essentially a bolt that it’s just like lashed onto your wrist with a bit of old rope, but the bit of old rope is like yellow gold, and the vault is made of carved malachite, and it has like rose gold ends, and so it’s totally go back to what I was saying before it’s like taking something that’s really kind of mundane and transforming it into something that’s the opposite of that hopefully.

I just yeah it’s funny when I was working on the collection two years it’s probably one of the most personal, went through quite a few changes in my life and this was a kind of like everything went into this collection of what was happening the last couple years, and I just I want to do something that felt absolutely kind of like new and modern and people haven’t seen on the market before and so one of things I wanted to do was using like no in inverted commas precious stones at all so there’s like no pave stones, there’s no diamonds, there’s nothing in it, it’s all about the these massive sculptural gold pieces and then carved ebony and carved malachite, and I wanted these things to feel like they were like yelling at you, like a massive shout, a massive like rage and I think this bangle does it - like the most, it’s amazing to wear, it feels amazing tp pick up and the other thing I like & feel quite strongly about jewellery, as that it should look as good off the body as it does on the body, you’re spending a lot of money on something it’s kind of nice to have it like sitting on the side when you’re not wearing it & this bangle does that, it’s like every angle… they’re kind of my new babies, this collection, so I’m a bit obsessive still, definitely not for the faint hearted, this piece.

JCC         No, it’s stunning. so it’s interesting what you said about this collection this is this is from the New Act of Rebellion yes collection which is your latest one isn’t it and it’s quite autobiographical?

HM        It is autobiographical on loads of different levels and it was only, it’s funny because you know I kind of work, when I’m working I’m really in the midst of this creative part I’m in this kind of bubble and I’m really horrible to be around, I don’t want anyone to talk to me I just wanna be like in this world I made, don’t want anyone to be around so they would burst my bubble so I kind of I don’t think hugely rationally at the time, I’m not sure of analysing one thinking that it’s funny looking backwards, once I’d started coming out a bit and looking at what I done I was like it was more autobiographical than what I was planning but yeah it was really a reaction to the last couple years. I split up with my husband and a long term business partner all within a year, my life had turned upside down, battling to get free I think for a while, and with everything that has been happening in the world for a while, I think through to Trump to all the political stuff felt like it was in turmoil and it all fed into the melting pot you want to stand on the top of mountain and scream,

JCC         Gosh now you’ve explained it actually sends goose bumps up my spine, looking at the bolt, this beautiful secure piece of engineering, lashed by these coils of rope to one place, it’s like hanging on and trying to make what you can of things.  I love the idea that you’re also very anti-complacency.

HM        Yeah very it’s like my on-going battle. That’s a good way to describe it. I’m strongly anti-complacency.  That’s my worst nightmare, getting comfortable, people getting settled, settling for something, always fighting.

JCC         To lead on then a little bit away from these 6 very strong, very autobiographical, very fascinating pieces, I love the way that you’ve assembled them all.  They are all yours. If you had to put in a piece from the whole of history, the whole of mankind’s love of jewellery of ornament and display, what sort of piece do you think you might have chosen?

HM        You know I was thinking and I don’t have an answer but it’s a toss-up between 2 – either a Suzanne Belperron piece –and I don’t have a specific piece, but she is my idol, if I had to pick one jeweller she would be it, maybe a ring, she does carved stone like chalcedony, with something sitting in it, almost anything, or it would be an Andrew Grima, and I can’t decide which one I would have. But it would be one of those two designers for sure cos they’re both, I’m pretty fussy about jewellery ‘cos that is what I do, but one of them.

JCC         So you could have them as guests in your Vault, but we won’t have their pieces, you could have them at a fantasy Vault jewellery party with them as guests. 

So in your everyday life do you wear jewellery a lot is this is it something you surround yourself with are you constantly trying things on, the pieces that are come out of the workshop, pieces that you are thinking of producing, you know how much does jewellery figure in your own daily life?

HM        I mean quite a lot I’ve got my kind of set of jewellery that I wear that’s kind of mine which is like lots of big rings, so the Eagle ring that we talked about, I’ve got two eagles actually, I wear, my hands are covered in massive rings, and I’ve got a load of ear piercings so I wear a lot of earrings, and that’s kind of like my uniform like of every day jewellery and then I do test wear everything you kind of have to especially you need to ensure it’s wearable  so yeah as things are coming out of the out of the workshop I’m testing things, I’m kind of like wearing them for a bit see how it goes and then that’s why I keep adding to my collection, cos sometimes I can’t live without it, I’ve got to make one for me, but yeah I have my every day wear and jewellery does feature, I love about jewellery that’s what got me down the fine art and jewellery path, as creative as it is, it does have to function, it’s got to be worn on the body, so wearing it on your body is essential to make sure it does work.

JC            Yeah and it feels part of both of your skin feels like an extension of your body. 

So the rule of the vault is that, through some act of cataclysm they are all about to be lost, but you do get to keep just one piece, so which piece would it be?

HM        Oh that’s really hard, I think it would have to be the Bolt Bangle, I think it would, mainly it would get me through any coming cataclysm, I think I’d need the Bolt Bangle to see me though, yeah I’d pick that one to keep, it’s closest to my heart at the moment cos it’s so fresh, so I think that would be

JCC         Well Hannah you keep that one.

Wow well well Hannah I can’t thank you enough for sharing your fantasy Vault with us - it’s not really a Fantasy Vault is it because these are real pieces.  I love the fact that these are pieces that you’ve created, they’re a part of you and that tell your own story.

HM         Ahh thank you.

ENDS