All that glitters…
Award-winning silversmith Machi de Waard will be showing her stunning designs at the Whiteknights Studio Trail this June – and Reading has a special place in her story, as she explained to Elestr Lee.
I’M DUTCH BUT only lived in the Netherlands for a few years. In fact, I grew up in Reading, Pennysylvania, living there for 12 years. I visited London, expecting to be there only a short while, but instead I was to meet my future husband, who had a house in Reading, Berkshire. I’ve now been living in Caversham for 24 years – I just don’t seem to be able to get away from Reading!” she joked.
Machi’s love of art and craft stems from her childhood, surrounded by a family who loved making things. “But I was also very good academically, so I ended up with a Masters in linguistics, and studied at Oxford. I ended up working at Oxford University Press in Oxford, but then I attended a jewellery making course here at Reading College – and announced to my husband that I had found what I really wanted to do!”
Since 2007 Machi has been concentrating on doing what she loves – designing and making jewellery and ‘small works’ (small items made in silver), as well as teaching her craft to others. “I have also written a book, with jeweller Janet Richardson, Silver Jewellery Making, which was published in 2021, which has been very successful,” she added. Machi’s modernist designs, based on simple geometrical shapes such as circles, spheres and ovals – “I have a thing for circles!” she laughed – are created using silver, gold and occasionally gemstones. “While sterling silver has been around for thousands of years, I prefer to use argentium silver, which has only been around since 1990. It has a higher silver content, and tarnishes less,” she explained.
In 2023, Machi gained a Masters in Jewellery and Metal from the Royal College of Art, and in May this year she was honoured to be made a Freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company in London. At the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Awards (the Oscars for jewellery designers), she won awards both in 2024 and again this year. When we met, she was excited to be reunited with her 2025 prizewinning entry and explained the story behind it as she opened the parcel and set it up for me to see. “I became involved in a collaboration with a Dutch musician,” she told me. “His name is Frans de Waard, which happens to be the same name as my father. Because of his name I kept coming across him online, so I sent an email to Frans to ask him if he would be interested in collaborating, and he replied, ‘That’s the weirdest email I ever got!’”
The initial idea has resulted in both artists creating a response to each other’s work. “I recorded the sounds of me making jewellery, which I sent to Frans. Then he turned this into a musical track. His piece of music lasts 44 minutes 44 seconds long, so in response I have made a silver box based on 12 octagons (which are very difficult to make!). Everything about the box relates to the figure four, and it builds up in layers, like the sounds of Frans’ music. An image of my design will then be on the cover of Frans’ album when he releases it. It was great to win bronze at the Craft and Design Awards for this piece!”
As well as creating her own designs, Machi enjoys taking commissions and collaborating with her customers, especially when they wish to recycle old pieces of inherited jewellery. She showed me how, in one case, she was presented with rings belonging to her customer’s parents which she was able to melt down, and rework into a beautiful modern new piece. “I like to turn old jewellery into something new,” she commented. “Most silver these days is recycled, and it can be completely transformed.”
As well as designing and making both small works and jewellery, Machi loves teaching her craft to others, and offers classes in various venues including at Maiden Erleigh in Silverdale Road, Reading, as well as at the centre for silversmithing skills at Bishopsland, which has recently moved to its new home at the Buscot and Coleshill Estate near Faringdon in Oxfordshire, in partnership with the National Trust.
Together with other local artists, Machi will be delighted to show her work as part of this year’s Whiteknights Studio Trail, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Other local artists crossing the river with Machi to be part of this year’s trail include Gloria Pitt, Nina O’Connell, and Lou Jessop.
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