Sally Ratcliffe
by Brenda Ross
In May this year Sally Ratcliffe of Sheffield was awarded a grant from the Arts Council that until next February allows her to spend time on research and development. This has enabled her to buy larger equipment and broaden her work from the silver jewellery with which she has made a successful business since 1990. She is not only experimenting with further techniques, such as oxidising the surface, enamelling and using gold leaf, but also with different forms to create contemporary sculpture.
Much of her jewellery has been based on organic, natural forms - one of her first designs was called 'oak leaves'. She is now developing that natural theme in her contemporary sculptures, inspired by photographs she takes of nature, such as vegetation growing over slate or on a dead tree. Her photograph of plants growing through fissures in rocks has inspired her to create a sculpture featuring a large piece of reticulated silver fitted against a piece of real rock, with individual organic pieces in silver 'growing' through, with the roots showing beneath as well as the 'plant' above.
She is also combining her work with that of Liz Frolich, who occupies the adjacent studio and uses tightly gathered fabric worked into sculptural forms. They plan six pieces, starting at one end with a piece of Sally's work, then working through pieces that gradually incorporate more and more of both their work, until the final piece at the other end is all Liz's work.
Sally also has ideas for other sculptures on an organic theme, based on subjects like a seascape, a pool, bluebells, woodland - all inspire her. She is also trying casting, and finding out by experimentation how to seal the surface of silver. She already sells her jewellery to 60-70 galleries, and a few of those who know of her new work have expressed interest in it. She would also like to exhibit her sculptures, but hopes too that the experimentation will throw up ideas to put into her jewellery, both in technique and design.
Sally's jewellery making began because she could not find any silver earrings to suit her when she had her ears pierced back in 1982. The following year her grandfather gave each of his grandchildren £50 to spend on something they wanted to do, and Sally spent hers on a year's evening course in jewellery, at Sutton College, in Surrey. Initially it was to make jewellery for herself, and during the day she worked as costume supervisor at the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead, having studied theatre, costume and design at college in Canterbury, Kent, where the prop work had included jewellery.
Sally continued with the jewellery class for four years, making jewellery in the 'natural' forms she so enjoys, from silver and twisted wire. Meanwhile she had married and, as she and her husband spent every other weekend rock climbing in the Peak District and North Wales, they decided to move nearer and went to live in Sheffield.
She did some dressmaking and continued with other crafts, such as making leather wallets and belts. Then she received a grant of £40 a week for a year, through a government grant scheme, to set up in business. She began jewellery making and decided that if, at the end of the year she was not making any money, she would go back to making wedding dresses - but she didn't need to.
Her first designs were natural organic shapes cut freehand from small sheets of silver. The odd pieces left were used for other pieces of jewellery, so nothing was wasted. Pieces were soldered on top of one another, together with round wire, to give the organic shapes that she likes to work with.
After her first child was born, Sally needed a simple design that she could prepare easily and take to her upstairs workshop for soldering while her daughter was asleep. A Natural Development
The result, in 1991, was 'ivy twist', a design that features silver wire twisted irregularly round the silver jewellery base.
It has been popular ever since and still makes up a quarter of her sales.
In the years since then she has continued to develop new ranges each year, adapting her work to her developing techniques. When she accidentally overheated a piece of silver - it buckled and the surface crinkled - she had by chance discovered the technique of 'reticulation', and that became a feature of her work. Her work has also adapted over the years to fit in with family life. When her first daughter grew from the baby stage into a toddler, Sally no longer had time to cut out shapes and so she developed a range using circles and ovals of silver. She also discovered that with reticulation, fire stains caused by heating did not have to be polished out by hand but could be done in a tumble polisher, which was much less time consuming.
When her second daughter arrived Sally began to develop ranges that would be easier and less time consuming, but heavier and so selling at a higher price, so she would be making fewer pieces to bring in the same income. She also developed more trade work. Already a regular exhibitor at the British Craft Trade Fair, she added the spring trade fair at the NEC, Birmingham, so she could spend more time working at home on trade orders and less out at public events.
'Each year I move on,' she says. 'I add one or two ranges but try to weed out one range each year.
If you stay still other people catch up. I make a lot in silver with gold on it. This has to be hand done and so the pieces cannot be copied by people from the Far East, because they cannot be cast. I can make them fast by hand but it would not be commercially viable for others without the same technical skills to make them.'
Some of her ranges she describes as 'more commercial', meaning that they appeal to a wider market. 'You have to have ranges that appeal to different people. You have to be selling the basic stuff in order to be able to spend time making more creative work.'
Her latest ranges include J'Art, a 'commercial' range, which features shiny heart motifs on a satin finish silver surface, and Ice Topaz, a more creative range using ice topaz or citrine stones on heavier, reticulated silver in organic shapes.
All Sally's pieces are individually made and so, even within the same range, no two pieces will ever be exactly the same - except for earrings. For some pieces Sally has to have the basic earring shape cast before hand finishing, because that was the only way to ensure a matching pair.
Three years ago Sally was able to move her business out of the 7ft bedroom at home into a studio in Persistence Works, a building run by Yorkshire ArtSpace to offer studio space for arts and crafts people, as well as space for exhibitions, public use and education. Here, Sally's light and spacious studio gives her the opportunity to continue to develop her work, both jewellery and larger pieces.
Sally Ratcliffe
Persistence Works
21 Brown Street
Sheffield S1 2BS
T: 0114 2493112
