About Me
My name is Machi and I’m an award-winning designer/maker. I make modernist jewellery in silver and gold, sometimes using gemstones. I also make small works, which means small items like boxes. I make my jewellery at my studio in Reading, Berkshire, where I’ve been working for more than 17 years. From January 2010 to December 2011, I was Jeweller in Residence at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell. At the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Awards (the “Jewellery Oscars”), held on 4 March 2024 at London’s Goldsmiths Hall, I won silver in Smallworkers design and bronze in Smallworkers and Modelmakers for my work of six scored silver miniature vessels.
I was awarded a Master’s degree in Jewellery & Metal from the prestigious Royal College of Art in September 2023. My degree work was applauded by the Craft Council’s Héloïse Parke as one of the top 14 craft graduate works in the UK in 2023. Benchpeg also cited my work as a Highlight of the RCA 2023 show.
I’m a big fan of abstract expressionism and minimalism, so work by artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Yves Klein inspire me. I also find inspiration from the shapes and clean lines in the work of sculptors Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Jean Arp and Constantin Brancusi. Closer to home, though, my whole family is artistic so I can also see creativity in my sister’s knitting or my mom’s painting or my grandmother’s tapestries. I love how you can give the same material to a hundred people to make something and they will all come up with something totally different.
My signature style rotates around simple shapes such as circles, spheres and ovals. I like the perfection and simplicity of a circle. A circle is a minimal shape – it encloses the maximum amount of space with the minimum circumference – which makes it a very neat, efficient shape. In my designs, the gold (or sometimes silver) sphere provides a sense of tension or playfulness by balancing on the curve or peeking out from behind the silver. My gold ball collection focuses on the playfulness of sphere, whereas my radius collection focuses on the pleasing edges of three dimensional circles.
My book, Silver Jewellery Making, which I wrote with fellow jeweller Janet Richardson, was published on 1 February 2021. See the book page on this website for more information.
You can purchase my jewellery on this website. You can also come to craft fairs and galleries that I show at throughout the year. If you’d prefer to purchase directly from me at my studio, please contact me.
All silver pieces weighing more than seven grams and all gold items are hallmarked at the London Assay Office.
I am proud to belong to Find a Maker: a curated collection of the finest makers.
