Katherine James Jewellery

Katherine set up her namesake business “Studio Katherine James” immediately after graduating in the pandemic in 2020. She has a degree in Art and Design from The School of Design. Katherine found many of her projects had been related to wearable-art or conceptual-jewellery as well as sculpture during her studies. In her second year Katherine created a piece of chainmail jewellery, which turned out to be the first of many! It was a re-imagined wedding veil, made in response to visiting the Royal Armouries.

Today, Katherine’s business is comprised of two closely linked artistic practices, contemporary jewellery and sculpture. A large body of her work to date has been focussed on re-imagining the symbolic power of armour. Katherine has developed her own chainmail techniques which she applies in many different ways to form her collections of sterling silver jewellery. For example, with the “Lace Armour” collection, she creates intricate feminine patterns from the chainmail. Whereas the “Molten Collection” has a melted and damaged look. For those sculptures she can use a variety of materials, but she also apply her chainmail techniques on a much larger scale.

While Katherine still creates many collectible, conceptual and statement pieces like the ones described during her degree, she has also developed a more commercial side to her practice. This includes more wearable day to day pieces such as earrings, pendants and necklaces which are currently stocked at the Royal Armouries and Leeds Art Gallery.

SPARK were there at the very beginning of Katherine’s thoughts of becoming self-employed. She attended a course during her degree which covered various areas of running a business. Initially after graduating, Katherine had received support from other organisations who specialised in advising creative businesses, but once that was over, she was very pleased to learn that she could still utilise SPARK until 7 years after graduation.

‘Spark business advisors have aided me in connecting with other makers and have facilitated setting up regular peer to peer mentoring sessions. They have also been a great sounding board for ideas and new directions. This is so valuable to me, as like many sole-traders I am usually working alone.’

Recently, Katherine has been using the Spark Incubator at Nexus which has been very helpful with balancing her business with her part-time job located near the city centre. Katherine has also been able to access and make use of the practical facilities at Helix and Spark have supported making those introductions she needed to be able to make the most of the space.