Lesley Strickland
by Angie Boyer
Lesley Strickland began making jewellery in 1980. She has made a living from it ever since, and won an award for excellence at her first visit to BCTF 2005. She says, ‘I was delighted to receive the award since most awards are geared towards younger people.’ She became a jeweller by chance. ‘I was into painting. Then I met Jennifer Pike who was teaching jewellery at the City Literary Institute. I saw her work and admired it. She encouraged me to attend and was inspirational. Jennifer worked in non-precious materials like Perspex and brass, which was unusual at the time. She changed my life - I never painted again: ‘At first’, she says, ‘I had a secretarial job, and I used to take the jewellery into my offices, and sell it to my colleagues, who were very supportive: Then she took a stall in Camden Lock and then Covent Garden Market. ‘I did the odd trade show too. I made gradual, slow, steady progress,’ she recalls. ‘It was very different from how students do it now; there was no help at all. If I needed machinery or tools, I had to wait until I could afford them. My bank manager wouldn’t take my small business or me seriously at all. In those days, bank managers used to think people like me were just silly girls. They thought I’d get married, have kids and give up work: ‘In fact,’ Lesley comments, ‘I did get married and have children, but I didn’t give up work. I moved my workshop to home when our first child, Daniel, was born.’ Her biggest difficulty was looking after the stall when her children were very small. ‘I employed someone to run the stall for me, but it didn’t work out.’ So, she was soon back on the stall herself. ‘I really enjoy selling my work. It’s a shame so many craftspeople are shy of this, because the public like to meet you,’ she says. ‘And it’s great to meet the public. I found it so useful to get an instant reaction to new work. When I designed something new, I’d take it to the market, and if no-one looked at it, I probably wouldn’t make any more: ‘I had the stall in the Apple Market at Covent Garden for over 20 years,’ she continues. ‘And I met some lovely people.’
Despite this, she left in 2002. ‘The market used to be a place of pride, and people were keen to make beautiful work, ’she says. ‘But the standards in both the work on the stalls and the management of the market deteriorated, so I left.’ ‘But I do miss it sometimes. I miss the weekly income, and I miss the weekly feedback: Lesley’s designs come from her familiarity with combining silver and acetate, and from a simple desire to create jewellery that makes her customers feel happy. She aims, she says, to make the value of her work exceed its price. ‘I started off combining acrylic and silver in my jewellery. I used plastic as part of the design because silver was very expensive at the time. To make a living,’ she explains, you need realistic prices. I remember at Chelsea Crafts Fair that people would come to my stand and say, ‘Oh good, something I can afford to buy.’ ‘And for me,’ adds Lesley, ‘that’s the point. I can’t afford the luxury of making things that people don’t want to buy.’ This isn’t simple mercenary necessity: Lesley enjoys the ego-boost from seeing that people like her work enough to buy She adds, ‘I primarily design for myself, so the people I sell to tend to be my sort of age. As I’ve changed over the years, my customers have come with me: She moved to designing in acetate about twelve years ago. ‘My husband actually discovered acetate for me, when I needed something new to inspire me.’ Lesley loves acetate, which is made from cotton oil. She says, ‘I use traditional jewellery techniques, and some that I’ve developed myself.’
‘Acetate,’ she continues, ‘is very nice to work with. It’s very malleable, so I can make organic, fluid forms, which I could never achieve in the more brittle acrylic.’ ‘People wonder what it is, thinking that perhaps it’s glass: However, it doesn’t feel like glass. It has a soft, warm touch, and is lightweight. This is important to Lesley. ‘I spend a lot of time on the finish to get it absolutely right,’ she says. ‘Customers come back for more because it feels nice: they have a very tactile relationship with it.’ When Lesley started making plastic and silver jewellery, she says, ‘it was really avant-garde stuff, and I sold it in the Design Council shop in The Haymarket. Only a handful of us were ma non-precious jewellery like that then, so we were more conspicuous. The Design Council was a great outlet, it’s a shame it’s not there any more, promoting British design.’ Nowadays, Lesley sells mainly through galleries all over Britain and as far afield as Barbados, USA and Australia. ‘I do little retailing myself these days, and it’s a shame because I love it, she says, ‘I miss the contact with the public.’
New designs come in waves. ‘I’ll have a quiet spell, she comments, ‘and then suddenly I’ll get excited and make lots of new work.’ She hand-makes all the work she supplies to galleries herself. ‘I’ve been making a few designs for 10 or 12 years,’ she says. ‘If it still sells, I’ll still make it. So, although I drop non-sellers, generally, as I’ve added new designs, my range has increased. I’ve now got around 50 different designs, in 12 colour ways - so it’s a big range.’ Lesley’s tip for new starters is, ‘stick with it and be realistic. Though, she adds, ‘I’m really impressed by some younger people - how they get it together and get good prices for their work.’
‘I do think,’ she adds, ‘that pricing is difficult. Some people now will go to a gallery, see work that they like, then contact the maker directly to try to buy it cheaper. Some makers undercut the galleries, but I think it’s important to support them, so I sell to the public at twice the wholesale price. I think that’s fair.’ Lesley’s work is stocked in a range of galleries. See www.lesley-strickland.co.uk for a list.
T: 0208 444 1200
www.lesley-strickland.co.uk
