Small Works
Goldsmiths Craft and Design Council Awards 2024
At the prestigious Goldsmiths' Craft and Design Awards, 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 (pictured above*). These awards are held annually to ‘promote the pursuit of excellence in craftsmanship and design amongst all those in the United Kingdom who work within silversmithing, goldsmithing, jewellery and allied crafts’.
My miniature vessels were scored with scoring tools I made myself and are made with Argentium silver. They are a series of vessels that are, from left to right: two vessels, a box with lid, a vessel, a box with moving components and a box with a friction fit lid. These vessels embody my commitment to hand making skills. These handmade pieces invite the viewer to handle them, feel their weight, touch their edges and explore their details.
In the Craft Council's "Making waves: our pick of this year's fresh craft graduates", curator Héloïse Parke wrote this about my mini vessels as part of her list of the top graduate makers of 2023:
A geometric visual language is at play in de Waard’s collection of stacking vessels. Crafted from a new alloy of recycled Argentium silver, the collection has a formal appearance but functions playfully. Child vessels hide within mothers, discreet hinges enable unexpected openings, and nods to tradition slowly reveal themselves.
*photo by Richard Valencia
Goldsmiths Craft and Design Council Awards 2025
I am thrilled that I won a Bronze for my 44:44 box at the 2025 Goldsmiths Craft and Design Awards in 3D Craft (Senior) Smallworkers and Modelmakers.
My silver box, 44:44, began with the sounds of making. I recorded sounds from my silversmithing practice and sent them to experimental musician Frans de Waard (no relation), giving him complete freedom to respond. He returned a composition lasting 44 minutes and 44 seconds.
I then translated his music back into metal, hand-scoring and constructing the box from flat silver sheet. Four became a formal motif, informing the proportions of the 12cm-high octagonal form. The box conveys the assembly of individual sounds in the track into a cohesive whole. Like the music, it exists in layers, but only makes sense when experienced as a whole.
The collaboration came full circle: metalsmithing became sound, sound became music, and music became metalsmithing again, with each artist retaining complete creative control. The resulting piece sits between box, objet d’art and a material response to sound.
You can hear a snippet of the track, which Frans hopes to release in the future, here: https://www.kormplastics.nl/musicbox.mp3
You can see Frans’ biography here: https://fransdewaard.com/biography/
Contemporary Cutlery Design Competition 2026
I was delighted to be shortlisted for the Cutlery Design Competition with my entry, Play in Motion.
This cutlery set translates the formal language of my jewellery practice into a functional, hand-held context. Influenced by early twentieth-century modern art, my work distils abstract form into a restrained vocabulary of strong, clean shapes—most notably the circle. Here, I explored how that visual language could be adapted to cutlery that is both distinctive and fit for purpose.
Careful attention was given to the proportions and profiles of each piece, allowing the decorative elements to sit in balance with function rather than dominate it.
The circle, paired with a gold sphere, introduces tension and playfulness into the otherwise minimal form. Positioned at the end of each handle, it becomes both a visual and tactile focal point. The contrast between smooth silver and the delicately balanced gold element invites handling and close engagement.
Conan
This is Conan. When I made my six scored mini vessels for my RCA show, I learned many things from many mistakes. Poor Conan here bore the brunt of my errors and frustrations. I was determined to make him into his own vessel, rescued from my scrap pile, and here he is: Conan the Barbarian (because he’s an octagonal cone), representing my determination to improve by oozing a big gold drip from his volcanic dark cone.
