Adrian Hope

De Arruda, Anarita

Silversmith

Passion, patience and practice

Adrian has been passionate about making since childhood
He has taught silversmithing for over 22 years
Craftsmanship is in the family

Adrian Hope started building things with his hands in his parents’ studio at home, in Scotland, at the tender age of seven. After studying at Edinburgh College of Art, in 1980 he opened his own workshop. He’s now based in Peeblesshire, “in the middle of an ancient landscape that is a huge inspiration to me,” he explains. For the past 20 years, with his wife Linda Lewin, a jewellery maker, he has run courses in silversmithing. To his students he always says: “You don’t need much teaching, but you do need time and a degree of patience and a place to practice and experiment." He estimates around 10,000 hours of practice, in fact.

Interview

When did your passion for craftsmanship begin?: In my childhood I used to visit a wonderful tinsmith and metalworker. He’s now nearly 90. Furthermore, my grandfather was a civil engineer but took up carpentry in later life, and at the age of 14 my mother taught me how to strip an engine.
Why have you chosen silver as your medium?: It’s a wonderful, forgiving, pliable material that I can manipulate with complete sympathy. I want the owners and users of my work to enjoy it, so it has to be direct and approachable and tactile. Preciousness is a hindrance, usefulness a happy bonus.
What techniques do you use?: Specifically, hand raising, when you hammer sheet metal into 3D vessels in such a way that it thickens, and peening or dishing, where the hammering stretches and thins the sheet metal.
What are your influences?: My most important influence is the work of makers of the ancient world. The simplicity of their techniques is testament to their skills. All my pieces tell some part of the story and connect the object, the viewer, the maker and the history: a sort of time machine.

Adrian Hope is a master artisan: she began her career in 1980 and she started teaching in 1994