The highlight of my six weeks was the time I spent with the jewellery curators looking at and handling pieces of jewellery in the collection.
It is fascinating to see what was done to wonderful jewels in the name of fashion and how remodelling was undertaken by successive generations.
It is such a privilege to be able to hold pieces and to turn them over to study the backs and see how repairs were cobbled together in some cases and how catches and fittings worked.
In the jewellery gallery I am interested in jewellery that has symbolic reference as this connects to the personal symbolism in my own work. I am also drawn to the birth of contemporary artist jewellery and the work of Sah Oved, Helga Zahn (shown below) and others.