A TALENTED silversmith from Ellesmere Port has won a national award.
Kate Earlam, 26, won the Goldsmiths’ Company’s Young Designer Silversmith Award at a ceremony at the National Museums Scotland last Thursday.
Kate’s award-winning piece, a silver fruit dish, was presented to Dr Gordon Rintoul, director of National Museums Scotland, by the prime warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, Lord Sutherland.
The competition, organised by the Goldsmiths’ Company, focuses on silversmith students at university in Britain and is open to anyone under 30 on a BA or Masters degree course.
Kate had the experience of working with Clive Burr and his team in his workshop in the new Goldsmiths’ Centre in Clerkenwell, London.
Kate studied silversmithing at Liverpool Hope University then completed a postgraduate course at Bishopsland. She was chosen as winner of this year’s Young Designer Silversmith Award after submitting a design for a vessel to display fruit.
The design brief asked that the form of the silver should ‘interact with the lines and shapes of the fruit and be able to display them for all of their beauty’.
Kate’s original inspiration for her piece came from grapes.
She said: “I started by looking at grapevines and re-creating the natural context in my own style.
“I feel so privileged to have been able to work with Clive Burr and his team of silversmiths. To see the standard of the work they produce has been extremely inspirational and has certainly impacted on my own skills and understanding.”
One of the country’s leading silversmiths, Rod Kelly, said: “It is a beautiful design with contrasting lines and contours, it sits majestically and is full of life.
“Kate is a very talented young designer and has totally fulfilled the brief set by the Goldsmiths’ competition judges.”
