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 hailed as the Oscar’s of the jewellery and silversmithing world and they 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 won a Bronze for my 44:44 box at the 2025 Goldsmiths Craft and Design Awards in 3D Craft (Senior) Smallworkers and Modelmakers.
At the RCA, there was much talk of collaboration, which inspired me to reach out to Dutch musician Frans de Waard. I had been aware of Frans for years as he has the same name as my dad, so I kept coming across his work online. Frans and I agreed on an unusual collaboration plan:
I recorded sounds of making in silver (sawing, hammering, torch lighting, etc) and sent them to him. He made a wonderful piece of music from it. He sent the music track to me and I created a design inspired by it. Since the length of the track is 44:44:44, I made the dimensions of the box based on 4. There are 12 layers (divisible by 4), it is an octagon (multiple of 4), the base sides are 22mm wide (2+2=4) and the top sides are 6mm (an even number like 4). The box conveys the delicate assembly of individual sounds in the track into a cohesive whole. Like the music, it exists in layers but only makes sense once assembled.
I hand scored this octagonal box from flat sheet in a single piece, which I then sawed into 12 pieces. Each piece has a bottom fitted into it and small positioning pegs to fit the box together and there is a small lid on the top. If you would like to see this box being opened, you can see the video on my instagram. The photo above is by Richard Valencia.
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/
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.
