Harriet Walford

Dimensions: 0.6 x 45.5 x 2.8 cm

Materials: Gilding metal, white precious metal, found steel washers and leather 

Harriet uses a variety of materials, including precious and base metal and leather, as well as found objects such as rusty washers from the roads. Harriet has been increasingly focussing on how things open and close, and particularly jewellery fastenings. She recognises the importance of a safe and secure closure, and the presence of a reassuring click reinforces this knowledge.

Harriet has been attracted to balls and round objects for over twenty years and is showing no sign of moving on. She has been making jewellery with round elements since her BA in Three Dimensional Design in the 1990s, placing balls in boxes or tubes before developing her own crocheted rope technique, first with copper and then silver wire.

In this work, the silver ropes and orange braided leather echo the woven decorated camel girths from India (and elsewhere), and the rusty washers recall the dull metal of old saddlery. In addition the polished metals relate to the Lucie Rie ceramic buttons and offer a nod to traditional jewellery, the whole demonstrating a new means of securing a closure. It is also evident that the closure has become the interest, no longer relegated to the back of the neck but worn in front or at the side.