Val Williams - Jewelry Gallery

SlickSilver Jewellery
Plymouth, Devon. UK

Val Williams grew up in the Midlands and attended a Rudolph Steiner school from the age of 3 until 17 and throughout those years she enjoyed every aspect of the highly creative atmosphere. Coming from a crafting family she continued to knit and sew whilst bringing up her family. After studying for three years with the Open University as part of her work in the health service Val decided to follow a path which would become all consuming. She decided to make jewellery.

Val trained at the Contemporary Jewellery Gallery under the tutelage of Victoria Sewart in basic metalsmithing prior to starting SlickSilver Jewellery. Her inspiration now comes from the textures and colours found in the world around her. Her silver work has an organic quality and incorporates found objects such as seaglass and often features her previous sewing skills.

Anodised aluminium has become a recent feature of SlickSilver Jewellery’s collections and has allowed Val to fully explore her love of colour and design. The aluminium is hand painted using specialist inks, and/or printed both manually and digitally and then dyed using her own blends of aluminium dye. After sealing, she cuts it in varying ways to ensure that each piece of the small amount produced is unique and exciting. Shapes are deliberately kept simple to exploit the design which is never repeated once all the material is used. Her signature collection features deeply textured anodised aluminium with repeating hand pierced shapes with sterling silver elements and hand finished.

The resulting pieces of art jewellery are highly individual and collectable.

Materials: Aluminium and brass
Dimensions: 16"

Deeply textured and dyed anodised aluminium is matched with reticulated brass to produce an eye-catching and highly individual piece of jewellery.

Photo credit: David Muddyman

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Willow Leaf III

Materials: Aluminium and silver
Dimensions: 8cm x 0.8cm

Handpainted anodised aluminium, saw pierced and forged, enhanced with textured sterling silver, cold connected.

Photo credit: David Muddyman

Flowering Cherry

Materials: Anodised aluminium and sterling silver
Dimensions: 18 inches

Handpainted anodised aluminium in 2 designs, saw-pierced, hand finished, dapped, drilled and cold connected.

Photo credit: David Muddyman

Bronze Wood I

Materials: Bronze clay, bronze
Dimensions: 7 inches

Found scraps of wood were cast and then individual pieces were modelled from bronze clay, fire, finished by hand and then protected with wax before being joined with bronze jump rings.

Photo credit: David Muddyman