SARAH PACKINGTON ACRYLIC JEWELLERY

I have been a member of the Artists Co-operative Rosehill Workshop since 1994, and in 2024 we turn 30! Thanks to fellow member Penny Warren and founder members Michael Wilde and Simon Taylor for helping to gather all these memories

​Rosehill Workshop 1994-2024
In 1993 a group of recent graduates from the Wood, Metal, Ceramics and Plastics degree course at Brighton University were looking for studio space.
Michael Wilde shared a flat on Rose Hill with Zac Lewis, and they could see the Rose Hill Workshop building from their rear window. Zac and Michael climbed down scaffolding that was up at the back of their building and slipped in through the broken double door to have a look around.
The building had been empty for some time, and previously used by a double glazing firm and a tile making firm. It was owned by the same landlord as their flat, Mr Tearle. He was in his 80’s and owned a lot of properties around Brighton. We think Mr Tearle bought Rosehill in the 1920’s or 30’s as one of his first properties and had originally used it himself for a sign making business.
Michael and Zac gathered a group of friends who they thought might be interested to discuss starting a new workshop. The building needed a lot of repair work, and it was agreed with Mr Tourle that they could have six months rent free to repair the doors, paint, and sort out the electrics.
They signed a lease under the names Wild, Taylor, Lewis and Walters with Simon Taylor and Andy Walters. They secured an £800 loan through Andy’s wife Sue to pay the electrician and solicitor. Helen Augade, David Rogers, Becky Levine and Laura Pottinger were all early member who helped with the renovations.
They put fliers around the university and town advertising the space.
It was always the plan to provide affordable workshop space for craftspeople, with everyone paying the same and working co-operatively to run the workshop. Members sign a licence agreement to join the workshop, rather than renting a certain square footage of space. We have meetings to discuss and vote if there any decisions to be made. Including on Zoom during covid.
Inside the workshop here was a large Cromarty kiln already in place. The group added a row of jeweller’s benches on top floor, and members put their Ceramics throwing wheels downstairs in the Kiln room.
Penny Warren, Sarah Packington, Gabriella Casemore, Rob Demel, Karen Laver, Laura Dodson, Annabet Wyndham and Jo Complin all joined in the first year.
The original monthly membership rate was £60 . We were very sociable, holding regular BBQs in the yard, and all downing tools for tea and cake at 4PM. Friday lunchtimes were at the Rose Hill pub, their speciality being a delicious filled Yorkshire Pudding.
We were awarded a grant of £500 for South East Arts to buy a second hand Apple Mac computer to share and a printer.
In 1997 we held a group exhibition at Myrioscope Gallery on Sydney Street in Brighton (now IO). In 1998 we took part in the Christmas gift show Lavish at the Phoenix Gallery on Waterloo Place Brighton.
 

​In about 2010 our landlord Mr Tearle died, and his estate sold our building at auction. He had sold the building with Michael’s old flat a few years previously. We like to think he hung on to Rosehill until the end because he was fond of us. We still had a lease, but when that ran out our future was uncertain as the new owners had plans to develop the plot.
Luckily for us property development generally had stalled a bit after 2008. Since the workshop started most other independent studios had been knocked down and shiny new flats, offices and restaurants built in their place. It also worked in our favour that the access to the plot is through a passageway under another building, also it is on a hill and surrounded by the gardens of several properties and the Salvation Army building.
After our lease expired, we still had permission to stay and the new landlords them same rent. Eventually new landlords put the workshop up for sale.
We looked around for alternative spaces but found nothing as suitable as our Rosehill. It is ideal as a workshop: being a detached building means less noise nuisance to neighbours, with no flats above so safer when using gas torches and kilns. The yard is also very useful. The Workshop is uninsulated so chilly in and winter rather draughty, but the roof is sound.
The building didn’t attract an offer acceptable to landlords, and they decided to keep us as tenants. In 2016 new lease was agreed with the rent doubling to a fully commercial rate. We advertised for new members to join and did a lot of work improving the ground floor, including laying a new floor and dry lining the walls.
During covid some members moved all their work home, others formed workshop ‘bubbles’ and we operated on a timetable.
In 2023 we had our first BBQ for many years at in the workshop yard, and are planning a party to celebrate 30 years in July 2024

I was delighted when Dazzle Exhibitions invited me to submit a new limited-edition collection to be sold exclusively at Dazzle Invites online exhibition Christmas 2022.
The pieces in this collection of dyed Perspex and silver jewellery are my response to the sculptures of Barbara Hepworth. Hepworth’s abstract works are inspired by people and landscapes. Curving forms with circles and holes that can be seen as representing human forms. I was initially inspired by Hepworth’s ‘Family of Man’: a series of individual but connected bronze sculptures that represent the human figure across generations, seen on a visit to the Yorkshire sculpture park with three generations of my family.
I have created a series of gently curved, connected and balanced shapes in aqua, stone and orange tinted acrylic. Circular drilled holes are used as both design feature and integral part of the ear wires and pendant fittings.
You can view and buy these pieces at www.dazzleinvites.com until 8th January 2023.

Part of the joy for me of working with acrylic in my jewellery is the challenge of how to join components in a pleasing and simple way. I avoid complicated fittings and joins that obstruct the flow and ease of a piece of jewellery. A necklace can consist of components strung continuously onto a necklet or hung from a chain. This year I wanted to make some bolder statement necklaces that are also easy and comfortable to wear every day, and to move away from the traditional strung beads concept.
In January I looked through pieces made on my degree course, which inspired me to recapture the spirit of fun and play in my new designs. I also browsed the book ‘The American Dream: Pop to Present’ from the British Museum exhibition of the same name, where my jewellery was sold in the exhibition gift shop. Heavily featuring Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, I loved the energy, composition, and colour of the prints.
My ‘Graffiti’ necklace, designed in 2016 uses horizontal acrylic components hung from two black nylon covered stainless steel cables, and I wanted to explore this method further. I can combine shapes to make larger pieces despite the constraints of drill hole length in acrylic.
I laser cut some geometric shaped components…semi-circle, circle, rectangle, and triangle which I hand etched and dyed with my signature black lines in various sizes. I had great fun combining these with smaller coloured acrylic circle and rectangles in pleasingly asymmetric ‘balanced’ compositions.
I have been delighted by comments of visitors to Craft Fairs where I have exhibited them this year likening them to Mondrian paintings and mini artworks.  

Well it has been a very strange and unusual year so far! I January and February as usual I had my   
'recovery' post Christmas period, and by mid March had pretty much re stocked all the galleries I supply with new work, and was sorting out applying to 2020 craft fairs and shows. Then of course it became clear that the Corona virus pandemic was very serious, and we went into lockdown.
Like a lot of people not in Key Worker jobs, it felt like everything stopped and gone on hold, and I hunkered down with my partner and two daughters at home. We spent most of the next two months sorting out and painting our daughters bedrooms, discovering walks in our local area and baking banana bread. 
There are 13 makers working at Rosehill Workshop, and we agreed that only one person could be there at a time, so I limited myself to only going in when I had an order to dispatch.
Motivation to get making again came in April when I was asked to do a 'stories takeover' on the 7dials art instagram account, as one of the makers who would have been taking part in the May Brighton Festival Artists Open Houses trail, had it not been cancelled. I asked my daughters for help, and you can see the results by clicking the link to youtube here.
 Then Lovedazzle ,the contemporary jewellery selling website contacted their makers about a promotion they were doing in May, and that kick started me to get back in the workshop and experiment with some new designs. We now had a part time workshop rota of small groups of makers, and so I created my 'Shard' range. This was inspired by wanting to be able to cut out my shapes myself on my bandsaw rather than ordering laser cutting, and a desire to make each piece unique. I like the balance of shapes being non symetrical, but still following a flow and pleasing to the eye. Click here to see the earrings in my website shop and here for the necklace. 
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'Made Makers'June 23-25 was the first online craft fair I took part in, it prompted me to upload individual unique items of jewellery to my website shop, you can see a film of  my 'home display' here.

Looking forward, I will be taking part in the Great Northern Contemporary Online Craft Fair July 25-31. 
Dazzle are presenting their anmazing jewellery selections at Dovecote in Edinburgh August 22 to September 12.
As things stand I will be at three 'real life' craft fairs in November, Made London 5-8 November, and Made Brighton 27-28 November and the Contemporary Craft Festival Bath 28-29 November. I should be able to confirm these in August, if unable to take place in real life they will be going online. 

So we are all getting used to the 'new normal', adapting and surviving. I have been posting more on instagram and facebook, and enjoying engaging with customers and other makers that way as we can't see each other at craft fairs. I am pleased to hear that most of the galleries I supply are slowly re opening, do take a look at my Outlets page and visit any galleries that are near you, like all small businesses they need our support.

Thanks for reading, I hope everybody is keeping safe and well, Sarah
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Over the autumn and winter I have been busy designing some new jewellery which has resulted in my new Construction and Block ranges. I always love the opportunity to update my collection and taking my jewellery in new directions, but equally looking back at some of my old work and seeing what I can revisit; my Block pieces take inspiration from some older designs with the clear centre and coloured edge. The Construction jewellery takes ideas from something that has always been a visual inspiration to me - modern architecture and building sites. While not immediately appealing, urban construction utilises many interesting colours and shapes which I always find strangely interesting to look at out of train windows! I hope you enjoy reading about and browsing the new products.


Construction
My new Construction range of acrylic jewellery is inspired by the urban built environment: the frequent sight of building sites both in my hometown of Brighton and from trains into London. A palette of tinted greys, neutrals and glass colour is influenced by high-rise architecture, highlighted by flashes of bright orange, red and blue like warning lights and safety equipment. The shapes are individually cut using a bandsaw, making each piece unique and subtly asymmetrical. The edges are then sanded and dyed black giving a bold dark outline to each component, adding a dramatic touch.

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Block
I wanted to play with cutting individual wedge shapes in acrylic to make a range of jewellery where each piece is unique. For this I have used 8mm thick clear acrylic, with matte sanded edges which I dye a range of strong colours. I enjoy the bold contrast between the ‘invisible’ centre and the wide coloured outlines, meaning the jewellery seems to appear and disappear as the wearer moves.

I look forward to seeing what 2020 brings in terms of new jewellery as I experiment with more  techniques, colours and shapes.

Thank you for reading!

​Sarah

Made Canary Wharf Contemporary Craft and Design Fair,  was held in March 2017 at Canada Square in the heart of London's Financial District, surrounded by looming steel and glass tower blacks. It was a fascinating place to hang out for a few days and meet new customers who may not have seen my work before, plus lots of regulars drawn by the consistently high quality of exhibitors selected by organisers Tutton and Young.

Some insight into how my pieces are made...

.Bangles are cut from tube on a band saw, then sanded and polished.

Components for my pieces are laser cut, then I texture, dye, polish and drill.

I tend to make in small batches, these graffiti earrings on my bench have just had the ear wires glued in place.

For the past three years, five jewellers from Rose Hill workshops have taken a group stand at the highly regarded contemporary craft fair Made London at 1 Marylebone .
This year it is October 22nd-25th. The show is an exciting mix of ceramics, jewellery, glass, textiles and wood.  Take a look at www.madelondon.org for more.