about me

Who - or what - is Gillery?

The name came into being in 1979 from Gill Mallett, who makes jewellery, and has been doing so since she started attending evening classes in 1971. The fuse had been lit! In 1975 she attended a vocational course in Wales, taught by a leading goldsmith, where a fellow student was Joan Newell, an acclaimed artist. Joan opened Gill’s eyes to form, texture and passion on an abstract scale and together they explored ideas, researched other people’s work and encouraged and inspired each other.

At the time Gill was making for herself and friends until in 1979 a gallery owner, Jeanne Hartshorne, asked her for pieces to exhibit and sell. The business was launched and Gillery was born.

Gill continued with her career in corporate finance for 10 years, building Gillery part-time, developing her skills and becoming involved with the Guild of West Midlands Artists and Craftsmen. In 1989 she seized an opportunity to make Gillery full-time and hasn’t looked back. 27 years trading as a maker is quite an achievement.

The Designs

Gill has always been inquisitive. Her “I wonder what happens if .....” approach to something new has led her to develop skills and techniques which she now employs in her creative work.

A process called drop casting is described in some old technical jewellery books and involves melting silver and pouring it into water to form random shapes. Gill experimented with this and found that, by trapping air in the molten metal before it hit the surface of the water, the shapes formed were concave, resembling shells. Based on this discovery she produced a range of silver trinket boxes with the shell-shapes decorating the lids (and one customer bought over half the boxes for herself and her shop!).

The “what happens if ...” approach then came into play when snow was on the ground (living in Birmingham then, it wasn’t that rare!), so she tried snow casting. If it hadn’t fortuitously worked the first time it would have been seen as a failed experiment. Only later did she discover how specific the conditions need to be for it to work satisfactorily! Over several years snow-cast shapes have formed a key part of Gill’s range of work.

Having moved south to Dorset, relying on snow for new, exciting shapes was too restrictive, so Gill has developed various other ways of cooling molten metal (usually silver or 18 carat gold) to create different effects and textures. The illustrated piece is from the Fire & Ice range, which often incorporates gemstones as well as partly melted silver and ice cast 18 carat gold shapes.

Apart from her own original designs, Gill now conducts “melt your own gold” sessions on an individual basis, as well as one-to-one or one-to-two jewellery making workshops. Please telephone for further information.

site map