Ellis Cameron On:AIR

This week I went to Glasgow on my days off, in order to go to a jewellery exhibition which was on in the Lighthouse Gallery.

The exhibition featured 9 different jewellers and silversmiths, several of whom were my Artists in Residence (AIR) during my Second Year at GSA, which I completed before summer.

The nine artists featured in the exhibition – called On:AIR – were:

• Rhona McCallum (AIR Glasgow)
• Kirsty Fraser (AIR Glasgow)
• Bekki Churcher (AIR Glasgow)
• Emily Knight (AIR Glasgow)
• Mariko Sumioka (AIR Edinburgh)
• Kathryn Hinton (AIR Edinburgh)
• Alice Bo-Wen Chang (AIR Edinburgh)
• Auste Arlauskaite (AIR Edinburgh)
• Filipa Oliveira (AIR Duncan of Jordanstone).

Rhona, Kirsty, Bekki and Emily all spent time teaching me during second year, whether it was sketchbook help, technical help, or simply listening to what I was hoping to do next/what I was worried about in each project.

They were all really helpful with different things and I loved having them there in the studio – they were kind of a safety net when I wasn’t sure about something, or needed to run something by someone.

For all of these reasons, I was really looking forward to seeing their work in the space, as well as comparing it to the other designers work in the exhibition. The others jewellers’ work was fairly unknown to me, apart from Kathryn Hinton’s work, as she gave a talk to all of Silversmithing and Jewellery students last year, about her pieces and process.

The Lighthouse is a lovely space itself, and the exhibition space was really great, as it was all the way up on the 5th floor, so it was filled with a lot of natural light.

I’d love for you all to check out each of the designers work, as I feel it is all really varied, as even although some of the jewellers use the same techniques, the outcomes and stories are all very different. I’ve linked each of their websites to their names above to help you do this.

The exhibition is running until Friday the 31st August –
Monday to Saturday: 10:30am-5pm,
Sunday: 12 – 5pm.
The Lighthouse Gallery, 5th Floors, 11 Mitchell Lane, Glasgow, G1 3NU.

Ellis Cameron, Young in Argyll correspondent

The photographs accompanying this article are by Ellis Cameron