After liaising with Kate for only a short time you are quickly immersed into her world of jewellery design and artistry; and her passion for the exquisite pieces she creates is hard to ignore. Crediting her parents for her creative mind, Kate is happy to reminisce about the amount of time she has spent “mesmerised by the interaction between flame and metal”, a driving force in the choice of her medium. “My Dad was a welder and growing up with him involved lots of garage and workshop time.Mum has a passion for storytelling and is writer so I learnt from a young age how to visualise and use my imagination. It is no surprise that with my Dad’s practical and technical influence and my mother nurturing my creativity that I would gravitate to a craft such as jewellery.” Working with various metals and mediums, Kate’s latest collection has led her into a new forum of expression.

Driven by her desire to “understand what it is to be human and to explore the different aspects of human nature”, it is hardly surprising that it is these notions which underpin a number of her works. “The initial idea for my last collection (Unity) came to me while I was jogging around the (Wellington) Bays and was thinking about people and different stereotypes. I went home and drew 3 or 4 men and put them to the side. A month or so later I woke up at some ridiculous hour and couldn’t get back to sleep so I drew and wrote for hours until I had pretty much designed the whole collection!”
  For the first time Kate has presented her work in framed groupings of silhouette human icons, rather than individual pieces of jewellery. Each one contemplates the idea that humans form “different relationships that help shape our awareness of self; contribute to our sense of belonging and enable us to feel part of something greater than ourselves”. Works like ‘It takes all types to make the world turn’ depict little human icons, each one different from the last, exploring notions of individuality and points of human difference. “I also suggest in this collection that our desire to define ourselves as individuals, as well as members of groups, underpins a universal human need”. This page left Kate in her studio with ‘it takes all types to make the world turn’ in the background. Right ‘unity’, mixed media (top) and ‘soul mates’, mixed media.
Opposite page Kate at work individualising characters for her next piece (top). selection of work from an earlier collection ‘one of these things is not like the others.’

  Created from a master copy, each ‘man’ is cast from an original before being individualised through the soldering of handmade elements, crosses, halos, dimond settings and rolled textures. Once indivdual characteristics have been added, resin is poured over and all final detailing completed. “I had so much fun individualising each ‘man’ and seeing their characters develop.”
  “All of my pieces reflect a stage of where I have been in my life. It is my hope that people can find something in my work to appreciate which may also resonate with them on a deeper level”. As Kate continues to create works which reflect the social world of today, and generate individual thought processes in each viewer, it is without a doubt that she will achieve this hope.