Ella Fearon-Low
Jewellery maker
Worcester Park, United Kingdom
A polished view on jewels
- Ella makes jewellery from precious metals and mixed materials
- Her work blurs the divide between craft, art and fine jewellery
- She explores large-scale installation and curation projects
Before Ella Fearon-Low picked up a jeweller's saw, she trained at SOAS University of London, both in development studies and Nepali language studies. She spent more than ten years in international development work across South Asia, Latin America and Africa, redirecting her from an expected art school path. “My experience could only be described as cutting off my sketching hand,” she explains. When Ella's family grew, she took contemporary jewellery classes at Morley College with a year of material exploration, and launched her practice in 2016. She places precious metals alongside materials like Lucite, polished until it is easily mistaken for jade, lapis lazuli or enamel. Ella has assembled an archive of visual references over a lifetime from Roman ornaments and Art Deco lines to postmodern architectural detailing and an antique glass image that lodges in her mind for years before resurfacing in a brooch.
INTERVIEW
I had always been a maker, approaching all school subjects with creative responses, like turning history homework into a scale model of a Celtic hut. But growing up, no one really showed me what applied arts could be. Jewellery gave me the material freedom without the scale of sculpture. I came back to making more deliberately.
I set out to blur the boundaries between craft and fine jewellery. Mixing materials is intentional, and I will consider anything. Someone once paid me the marvellous compliment of being possibly the world's most accomplished polisher of Lucite!
I like working with a really lightweight Knew Concept saw. Because I hand cut everything, I need a saw about five times the depth of a standard jeweller’s one, so I can work with large sheet materials while preserving fine detail. Additionally, I have an Italian riffler file that I think is particularly beautiful.
I do not function without a deadline, but the ideas always come through the making. I might come up with something mid-project and think, 'That would be interesting'. Someone once told me to save every sketch, as there is a high chance that 15 years later I will come back to it and feel ready to make it.
Ella Fearon-Low
Jewellery maker
Worcester Park, United Kingdom
ADDRESS
Address upon request, Worcester Park, United Kingdom
AVAILABILITY
By appointment only
LANGUAGES
English
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