The beginning
I started getting interested in making jewellery while I was living in Mexico. It’s a colourful and creative place. I wanted to acknowledge the inspiration that the country gave me by naming my business after the beautiful, brightly-coloured quetzal bird. ‘Quetzalli’ actually means quetzal feather in Náhuatl, one of the many indigenous languages of Mexico. It was while walking around markets, looking at the amazing range of handicrafts, that I started to look at the strings of seeds and beads for sale. I began to buy them because I liked the colours and textures, but had no idea what I would do with them.
I’ve always had an addiction for buying jewellery, so once I had built up a bit of a collection of beads and seeds, I started to play around with combinations of them. It was on a trip to Monterrey, in northern Mexico, that I took the plunge and bought some basic tools, and a couple of books on basic jewellery techniques..
At home, in Mexico City, we had a quirky room, up at the top of an outside metal staircase, which I took over and turned into a workshop. There I played around with the bits and pieces of materials I had collected, experimenting with different techniques, until I was able to produce pieces that I was happy were of a high enough quality to give away to friends. Their feedback helped me improve, and soon I was able to sell pieces.
Now
Since Mexico, Dave and I have moved three times. First to Guangzhou in Southern China, and then to Beijing, then briefly to Manchester, and now finally to Orange County, California.
Each time, I have managed to earmark a room to myself to use as a workshop. Though, as time has passed, I have acquired more equipment and a larger collection of materials, so space has always been a problem! The room I have here in California is lovely and light during the day, with a view of trees with a wonderful variety of birds, plus rabbits and squirrels.
My philosophy
I like to mix things up and enjoy the contrasts of light with dark, bright with dull, rough with smooth, glass with wood, shell with silver. I have picked up materials from all over the place, often not knowing how I will use them. This can be a problem, as sometimes I find I use up all the red seeds I found in a market in Yunnan, and can’t easily return to buy more! My collection now includes beautiful ceramic beads that my friend Fiona brings me from Ghana; seeds I collected while walking through the forests of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan province, China; lovely shells with a zig-zag design that I picked up on a Sri Lankan beach; different-coloured wooden beads from the fabulous Liwan Plaza in Guangzhou.
People often ask me why I don’t move to designing only, and employ other people to produce multiple pieces. In China, this would be easy to do, as labour is relatively cheap. I have never wanted to let go of the craft part of the process. For me, the enjoyment is in the whole process – from initial idea, to seeing someone wearing the piece. Similarly, I like to make one-off custom made pieces, so that clients feel they are getting something unique and special, where they have provided creative input to the process. I enjoy the dialogue with a client, working out together the colours to use, materials, style of the piece. The result is a collaboration of creativity
Materials
I use good quality findings, so my earring hooks and clasps are always silver. I often use silver beads too. I have recently started making rings using silver wire. Necklaces are strung on plastic-covered wire, jeweller’s thread, cord, or leather. Sometimes, however, breakages occur, and I am happy to do free repairs, including the cost of postage.
As I mentioned before, I pick up beads when and where I can find them. In Mexico there were a number of bead shops selling hundreds of different shapes and colours. In Guangzhou, there was the fabulous Liwan Plaza – a whole mall of several floors selling everything to do with making jewellery. In Beijing, pearls were easy to find, and some of the markets had a few stalls that sold strings of beads as well as ready made pieces, but I’ve yet to find the equivalent of Liwan here!