Continuing family traditions
- Cara often combines silver with other materials
- Her silverware is influenced by the environment
- She learned enamelling after winning a funding award
Growing up in Northern Ireland to a silversmith father and an enameller mother, Cara Murphy was immersed in creativity. It was inevitable, then, that she would go to art school, but she didn’t know if she would choose the same path as her parents. She initially toyed with graphic design, before realising that the act of making was what she was really passionate about. After studying silversmithing and jewellery in Glasgow and London, she returned home to Northern Ireland. She now works alongside her father in a shared workshop, creating nature-inspired silver tableware, often with enamel accents, after learning her mother’s skill of enamelling.
Interview
- What is your approach to silversmithing?
- I am very influenced by the environment. I’m creating a ‘silver landscape for the table’, that’s my mantra. Whenever I am out in the environment I am really interested in how I can take influence from that and change it slightly and bring it from the outside to the inside.
- How did you get into enamelling?
- Mum and Dad aren’t getting any younger, and I just had this realisation one day that if I don’t learn to enamel, this skill could go from my family and I couldn’t do it on my own. I really enjoyed learning the process and how I can add colour to my work.
- What’s been your most memorable commission?
- I made a piece for a lady who had her late parents’ silver tea set. She asked me to melt it down and make something else. Those personal commissions are a lovely experience because you are working closely with someone and you watch them have such enjoyment from it.
- Why do you love being a maker?
- There’s a sense of achievement when it goes right. It’s a very slow process, but having that idea in your head or drawn on a piece of paper and then taking the raw materials and working with them and seeing that piece actually being realised is what drives me forward.
Cara Murphy is a master artisan: she began her career in 1992 and she started teaching in 1994
Where
Cara Murphy
