Real passion for jewellery (From Stroud News and Journal)

Real passion for jewellery

STROUD district based jeweller Helen Newman is currently exhibiting her work at Cheltenham's Art Gallery and Museum under the title Adorning the Body.

A passionate desire to wear the fashionable large chain belts of the late 1960s started Newman on the successful path as a jewellery designer/maker.

Unable to afford the belts being produced by designers such as Paco Rabanne she set about making her own. She borrowed tools from her father, who made toy engines for fun, and enjoyed the excitement of cutting sheet metal and carrying out something completely new.

The results led to an early collection described as 'body sculpture'. A show of this jewellery at the Ewan Philips Gallery in Mayfair, London in 1970 led to a succession of commissions from prestigious clients, including Una Stubbs and Eva Chadwick, and coverage in Harpers and Queen and In Vogue - Men.

Her secondary education involved two years at the Cambridge School of Art then to Goldsmiths, London where she gained a National Diploma in Design.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s she ran a successful workshop with a number of assistants. Always alert to the changing trends in jewellery she was quick to adapt her techniques to new ideas.

For example in the 1970s she designed gold and silver handmade chains sometimes interspersed with semi-precious stones to suit the fashion for smaller delicate pieces.

Today Helen enjoys the freedom of working alone, either painting of making jewellery to commission or for exhibition.

Adorning the Body runs until January 14, 2006 and the exhibition is open Monday to Saturday between 10am and 5.20pm. The gallery is closed from Saturday, December 24 to Tuesday, December 27 inclusive and also on Monday, January 2. Entry is free.