'lovedazzle.com' - the newly launched e-commerce arm of the famous Dazzle exhibitions - is pleased to introduce a clutch of contemporary jewelers creating fabulous pieces out of found and recycled material. If you have any interest in eco-fashion, take a look at the inspiring work of Clara Breen, Lindsey Mann, Iona McCuaig and Shivani....

CLARA BREEN
Clara recycles paper to create brooches and rings. This could be train tickets, maps, old leaflets or discarded paper, which she frames with sterling silver and attaches with gold rivets, resonantly creating something precious out of essential rubbish. She could even create bespoke pieces out of paper meaningful to an individual, to create, as she explains, " tiny containers of memory. Cutting and glueing the paper, I make strata-like constructions. The forms suggest a ‘personal landscape’, composed of many layers of mundane experiences."

LINDSEY MANN
Lindsey's work is particularly inspired by 1950's tin toys and games. Her pieces incorporate a variety of recycled materials: old ivory from piano keys, buttons, tiddlywinks, lotto counters, for example, in amongst all sorts of other materials, including printed, anodised aluminium with silver and semi-precious stones. The concept behind the pieces comes from ideas of collecting memories and they are loosely inspired by her own childhood memories of being surrounded by her Father’s obsessional collections of vintage machinery, hence, many of her pieces take the form of nonsensical mechanical inventions.

IONA MCCUAIG
A rising star in the field of contemporary jewellery, Iona is Artist in Residence at the ancient Friends' School in Saffron Walden. Its extraordinary 300 year old history and the archives which accompany that have provided a new and totally absorbing strand of inspiration for her. Using found and reused objects in her work - from pen nibs to dice to coins - adds a further dimension, as she explains: “I aim to bring forgotten or unheard stories of the past to life by incorporating fragments from old letters, diaries and books, as well as found objects. I want to give a sense of everyday life and objects that perhaps we take for granted, like a folded scrap of paper, a thimble or a ladybird. Making these moments come alive through silver jewellery preserves them in a wearable form."

SHIVANI
Shivani's work is literally recycled old jewellery. She draws on architecture, textile patterns, nature and her Indian heritage - inspired, particularly, by the boldness of colour of Indian jewellery given a contemporary twist. She is the ultimate example of the modern Asian woman: embracing both the future and her cultural roots and allowing each to inform the other. To this end, all of the 22k Gold that she uses is recycled, unwanted Indian jewellery which she either buys from family and friends or second hand from auctions. The alloy is slightly different to the normal 22k alloy, giving Indian gold a much richer colour, but also a richness of heritage: melting down and reincarnating such materials in a contemporary form is a particularly resonant metaphor.

Apart from the overarching environmental statement they are making, each are using recycling to interestingly differing artistic ends. Whether to imbue their jewellery with bespoke meaning, to add cultural resonance or as an analysis of memories and history. All very different end results, yet all acquiring an increased profundity for using previously used and cherished objects.