Sarah Parker-Eaton

b. 1965, Aden, Yemen

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Scotland
Liverpool Museum and Art Gallery, England
Craftwest, Perth, Australia

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2004 10th Anniversary Show, Eton Applied Arts, Windsor, England
Seed Pods, Craftwest, Perth, Australia
Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, New York, NY
Selected Works 2004, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1998-2004 Turned Wood - Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Designing Futures Artist Residency, Craftwest, Perth, Australia
2002-03 Plankton, Collaborative work with Louise Hibbert, touring, Craftwest Gallery,
Perth, Australia
Grace Barrand Design Centre, Nutfield, Surrey, England
Crafts Council, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
World Conference on Phytoplankton Productivity, Bangor, England
Turned Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1999-2003 Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Featured Artist in 2002, New York, NY
2002 Surface + Form, Craftwest Gallery, Perth, Australia
1990-2002 Chelsea Crafts Fair, Chelsea Old Town Hall, London, England

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Marine biology and fossils directly inspire each piece of my jewelry, from chunky, leathery, gherkin-shaped animals to slender, elegant sea lilies. My newest designs have a distinctly British influence. I have been looking at the rich and varied marine fauna of the British Isles and studying plankton at the University of Wales. This has led me to make strange stalked creatures that could have emerged from the mud flats and spiky beasts that would be more at home on our rocky shores.

All my work begins on paper as a series of sketches mainly done in the Natural History Museum in London. I re-draw these images repeatedly until a particular design emerges. I then begin to work in silver and gold, hammering out the bulging shapes and allowing the piece to develop further. Some pieces have been pierced through with forged tendrils and others appear to be kept afloat with small domed silver air sacks. Most of my jewelry is given a sheeny satin finish or a darker oxidized look, and details such as tiny gold bobbles are highlighted with a polish.

I set up my workshop in 1990 after graduating from Three Dimensional Design at Newcastle-Upon- Tyne and spending time training with jewelers and silversmiths. The standard of my work has been endorsed by grants from the Crafts Council of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Since then, I have exhibited widely throughout Britain and abroad. My jewelry is in two museum collections, as well as in the collections of enthusiasts from the world of biology and geology.