Phil Barnes

The moment one enters the Garden Gallery one is overwhelmed by the luminous glow of the enamel objects displayed by the British Society of Enamallers. Phil Barnes, the doyen of this illustrious group, displays his complex pieces epitomised by the clarity of his champlevé enamelling. Many of his brooches are divided into cells and engraved underneath. Take the purple and green design suggesting the line, colour and form of Art Nouveau softened by the fine dropped amethyst.

The soft blues and greens of Penny Davis's delicate earrings and necklaces in pebble form, made in sterling silver, are both inspirational and decorative inspired, as they are, by the phytoplankton beneath the sea that change carbon dioxide into oxygen, vital for the planet. Moved by a Greek-like head, Rosemary Zeeman's new venture has her working with enamel on copper. Keeping to just black and white, together with a final layer of flux, these two colours mutate into a range of rich greens, reds and gold. Her sequence of six plates (below), based on her own drawings and photographs, leaves one free to interpret the series in a personal way

Limited by the size of the kiln, Evengeline Long's solution is have diptychs for her kimono-shaped hangings. Reminiscent of Gaudi, they suggest strong shapes of cathedral arches and the copes worn by bishops. She uses rich terracotta shades and allows the copper to shine through the designs. The shape of her freestanding monoliths evoke the natural forms of grasses and flowing wisteria.

Pat Johnson slashes her natural-looking enamelled copper bowls that glow from within. Using very high temperatures in the kiln. her palette is rendered brilliantly transparent as the light hits the copper of her vibrant bowls that reflect back the coloured enamel. In contrast, Penny Gildea's delicate little hydrangea bowl in gentle shades of blue would make a fine gift together with the matching triangular broach. Her Sahara necklace, made of uniform lozenges graduating in size strung on a stainless steel thread, reveals fine workmanship. Breaking out of the constraints of jewellery, she has made boxes and penny whistles that work; I coveted one decorated with a Koi carp and hanging on a Japanese thread called a kumihimu.

Van Long 

Jean Merritt, Van Long and Pat Johnson

At the time of writing, the current BSOE exhibition ‘Out of the Fire’ is still running at the Garden Gallery, Oxford Museum, in Woodstock. This is a splendid looking show of work, with 24 members exhibiting a total of 188 pieces, completely filling both of the gallery’s rooms.

The Private View was very well attended and attracted commendable sales for the exhibitors. Since then, an article about ‘Out of the Fire’ has appeared in the Oxford times, and the exhibition has been mentioned on the radio, during a program featuring the Oxford Museum. The staff at the gallery comment that the numbers of visitors has been exceptionally high. It is results like this that show us that there is interest and appreciation of enamelling by the public and that we have somewhat of a following. Such a response is a great encouragement for the BSOE to stage such events in the future.

In addition to the standard of work that members would normally send to an exhibition of this importance, the exhibitors were also asked to submit experimental pieces – to take a risk in the interests of developing their own profile and that of the BSOE. Ten of the twenty four exhibitors responded to this and sent work that they considered to fall into this category but which is also of the highest quality. Originally the committee intended to exhibit the experimental works as a group, but Penny Davis, Penny Gildea and Nike de Bellaigue, who set up the displays in the cases, moved away from the usual practice of grouping everything belonging to each exhibitor in one place and instead distributed the work of those members, who were represented with a relatively large number of pieces, throughout the gallery. The intermingling added an element of variety and excitement to the show, and because of this way of arranging the display, integrating the experimental pieces increased the liveliness of the exhibition.

Ruth Ball

Sheila McDonald

Five exhibitors especially have taken steps in completely new directions. Hali Baykov sent two brooches featuring exciting, boldly coloured triangles, a complete departure from her usual, nature based jewellery. Janine Greenberg, in addition to showing two handsome champlevé necklaces, also exhibited three collages, based on enamel painted nude figures, one with a comment to make about the relationship between men and women. Rosemary Zeeman has been experimenting with using screens to produce images on small copper panels. Five of these, showing variations that could be achieved using just one image, were mounted in a line and inset near the bottom, of a 1 meter square black, wooden panel. Rosemary incorporated some of the enamelling effects she discovered when making these panels in a handsome set of pendants, which were also in the exhibition. Ruth Ball had made a set of delightful brooches, showing very small screened images of urban scenes, and Sheila Macdonald exhibited a stunning collection of neck pieces, brooches, and earrings, unusual both in colour and form.

Why did the executive committee decide to ask the members to produce experimental work for this exhibition? The answer to this is that all producers who want to attract attention must continuously evolve in order to keep their customers coming back – think of the Paris fashion shows and the new models of cars that appear every year. A certain amount of development is essential to every maker’s career, although it is important that changes are seen to relate to previous work, in order to maintain the maker’s position. For the committee, asking exhibitors to show experimental was their way of encouraging the expression of excitement in enamelling.

The experimental work shown at ‘Out of the Fire’ was more a case of being innovative rather than boundary breaking. In most cases it was a matter of each individual enameller’s personal move forward within the context of their previous work. This is to be expected because we have all worked hard, and for a substantial period of time, to be able to make enamels that are admired, desirable, and successful in attracting customers. Its not possible to be both ground-breaking, in the sense of finding ways of using enamel that has not been thought of before, and to have spent time working with the incredible potential that enamel offers to each of us to develop in our own way of expressing our individuality and artistic insight. ‘Develop’ is the key word here. Boundary breaking is an opening step, but when the new effect is taken forward, the aims of the maker become the same as established enamellers. 

Exhibition View

Rosemary Zeeman

Over the years this newsletter has contained many articles about ground-breaking enamelling, many of the examples being technically and artistically fascinating indeed. But these works are invariably produced very early on in the career of a particular artist, before the battle between enamel and maker has been truly joined. Once the opening skirmishes are over, the relationship between the two begins to settle down and grow into a partnership. Practical realities have to be taken into account, a certain amount of control, both aesthetic and practical, becomes desirable. And the goal – the creation of something beautiful, even in the most austere or in the most expressive way, becomes the same for new innovative work as for experienced enamellers. Of course, aren’t all makers, by definition, in a quest for beauty? We might have to ask the fine artists for the answer to that.

That is not to say that the contribution of new enamellers is not important. Theirs has the virtue of causing excitement and surprise, the work that will get enamelling noticed by the forces for progress in the arts and crafts. It is a privilege to be able to write about the new enamellers and publish the articles in the newsletter. For more experienced enamellers, however, the value of experimentation and innovation, within the confines of their practice and level of skill, is to bring new life and vitality to their work. ‘Out of the Fire’ has benefited from contributions from the experimenters, which accompanied the stunning accomplishments of the exhibitors in general. The effort to stage it was certainly worthwhile and it is hoped that we can stage more events like this in the future.'

Penny Davis