I often wonder if I were to try and sum up a whole life approach if it would be as an aesthetic of living that is around being not having.
I lived in Singapore as a child, my mother sharing her new skills of Ikebana and paper cutting. Exposed to the richness of far eastern cultures I began to make, construct, cut and arrange. Combining this early perspective with the later added skills of jewellery craftsmanship, fine art printmaking and working in gardens and with flowers, the editing and re-editing of surfaces, colours, textures and forms start to make sense. The interweaving of metal to paper and paper to metal evolving as a signature style around imprinting.
A realm of infinite possibilities is created by combinations and layers of a range of metals and surfaces, using hand-cut paper to emboss metals, patinas to delineate, edges to create dimensionality, wire and tube to navigate.
I like to think that my style comes from; a Japanese minimalism, the refinement of France, the quintessence of Englishness or just the romantic wildish nature of a tinker? Either way, the work is individualistic and eclectic and once discovered hopefully is at once engaging.
Julie Bailey is a British designer/maker producing studio jewellery at Atelier papermetal. She sells through independent galleries, online and made-to-order for private clients. Her garden studio workshop is based in Thirsk, Nr. York, North Yorkshire, UK. She has designed a collection for National Trust as their Artisan/Maker 2019, and is a Crafts Council Selected Directory Maker.
