About Vicky Forrester
 
Personal History.

I’m a practicing jeweller with 23 years of experience in the contemporary jewellery field. I have exhibited my work extensively in the UK and abroad through various specialist galleries (Electrum, Lesley Craze, Flow, ProArte Monaco and many more)

I have a BA Hons degree in Silversmithing and metalwork (Camberwell, 1990), and a Post Graduate Certficate in Education (Goldsmiths’, 1994)

To complement my working practice, for the last 13 years I have been teaching jewellery making to the community in a variety of contexts – through workshops and specialist short courses and at community and further education colleges in London. (Community Education Lewisham, Morley college, Lambeth college, Westminster Adult Education Service)

I am an ardent supporter of ‘life long learning’.

Having myself gained so much from the generous provision of adult and community education in the 80’s I am conscious of the enormous benefit that this level of education provides. This provision seems elemental to me in the interest of promoting a healthy, respectful and balanced society.
Beyond the immediate value of learning new skills (and the subsequent opportunity to enter full time study and employment), adult and community education also provides opportunities for personal growth that defy measure. Such benefits include: 

• exploring one’s creativity
• learning new skills, to develop dexterity
• enhancing problem solving skills
• meeting, sharing with and learning from a diverse range of individuals
• improving self esteem and self confidence
• communing with one’s self
• gaining and improving social and communication skills
• entering into higher education (as in my own case)
• returning to full time education
• making beautiful objects
• presenting works to a wide audience in exhibitions
• selling work
• becoming a successful designer maker
• changing career within the jewellery sector

As an ‘eternal student’, I continue to seek new experiences, explore new skills, and each year I endeavour to enrol on a different course. My life is richer for these experiences, and along the way I have met some inspirational people.

My Teaching

I have a wide range of teaching experiences in a variety of contexts across the educational sectors, (nursery / primary / secondary / community / further education). These experiences have equipped me to work effectively with students having a broad range of skills, abilities and needs, with absolute respect for the individual regardless of age, race, sex, ability or religion.

Every student comes with their own wealth of experience and knowledge and I actively encourage the sharing of these resources for the enrichment of all.

I particularly enjoy working with adults, and I have 11 years of experience in the community and further education sector. As well as teaching mixed ability unaccredited courses, I am familiar with various accreditation procedures having devised, prepared and presented courses that satisfy specified frameworks (LOCN and NCFE), and my courses have received extremely positive feedback from these awarding bodies

Because of the way in which colleges have been funded, there has been a huge push for courses to become accredited in some form, and this has led to enormous amounts of paperwork for students to complete.

The courses currently on offer are not funded by another body.

I am pleased to be able to offer jewellery courses which do not require my students to complete unnecessary paperwork. While I actively encourage the use of a sketchbook for personal development, students can choose how much time they focus on this work, also how and what they wish to learn. This also leaves me free to facilitate on an individual basis. In effect the course is tailored to the needs of the individual rather than those of a distant funding body with an entirely unrelated agenda!

Students will receive a Flux Certicate on completion of courses.

All courses I teach are supported with relevant handouts that I also devise and write. My students say they are informative and useful!

I encourage students to keep abreast of the contemporary jewellery movement and each term an extra - curricular visit to an exhibition will be arranged for interested parties to attend.

I also keep students abreast of related exhibitions throughout the year, sending details through an email list, which I set up annually. Students wishing to take advantage of this facility should provide me with an email address.

My Work

Jewellery for me is an art form; I see jewellery as wearable sculpture, a means to explore relationships and form, to ask questions and present challenges, to soothe the senses or to awaken them.

From concept to realisation, I like the element of problem solving that jewellery making presents. For this reason I mainly produce one-off pieces, and I also like to work to commission.

The making process requires focus; at every stage in the development of a piece of jewellery, challenges arise and choices must be made. The process requires a fluid approach, and every problem arising equally presents opportunity. The final outcome charts this evolving relationship between the idea, the choices made, the application of process, and the behaviour of the material. With a successful piece of jewellery these elements find accord.

Equally important to me in the making process is the notion of intent. As we weave and forge and form our intentions into objects, here we jewellers have the means to exercise alchemy.

Image copyright Vicky Forrester. (c) 2008