Lucie Gledhill

Jewellery maker | London, United Kingdom

Recommended by

Judith Clark

Dancing with metal

Lucie specialises in chainmaking
She takes on interns yearly to teach them metal work
In 2019 she was awarded the Jerwood Makers Open

Lucie Gledhill followed a degree in Jewellery at Middlesex University before heading to Bishopsland Edcational Trust, a residency focusing on traditional silversmithing, jewellery and goldsmithing. Her education was completed with a two year master's at Royal College of Art in Metalwork and Jewellery. It was at the RCA where she got seriously into chainmaking. Starting from tradition, she likes to take a classic design and give it a contemporary twist by for example soldering the links in awkward positions. Today, she runs a jewellery and metal workshop of four people and has widened her scope to other materials such as wood. An artisan in the very sense of the word, Lucie makes everything from scratch, her own gold alloys and solders, and uses recycled metals.

Interview

What are your sources of inspiration?: Metal itself is a limitless source of inspiration. It has a temperament and I enjoy studying its behaviour to manipulate it and push it to its limit. Making is like a dance with the metal although sometimes it feels like we are fighting. I try to leave the evidence of these moments in the finished piece.
What does “well made” mean to you?: A well-made piece tells a story of the making. I like to see the journey of the making through solder seams or solder puddles, marking out lines or hammer marks. It's a bit unconventional, but it’s important to know when to stop working on a piece – something which I continue to experiment with.
Do you master any specific techniques?: I start by making my alloys in gold. A lot of my work is based around the draw bench. I specialise in chainmaking which is repetitive and meditative. Most of my chains include graduating scale which means that I need to know maths! I love to play with the movement of the chain and work scales.
What was the first object you made?: At the Royal College of Art, I started focusing on chainmaking. The first one was a sculptural curb chain, Chain Of Thought – a graduating curb chain where the largest link was as big as I could make and the smallest link as small as I could make. It was over 3 meters long.

Lucie Gledhill is a master artisan: she began her career in 2010 and she started teaching in 2010