The Goldsmiths’ Centre, 42 Britton Street, Clerkenwell, London EC1M 5AD
This May, The Goldsmiths’ Centre in Clerkenwell will once again be hosting INSPIRED, a selling exhibition of some of the UK’s finest contemporary bespoke furniture and silversmithing. Now in its fourth year, this successful collaboration between The Furniture Makers’ Company, the British furnishing industry’s charity, and the Festival of Silver brings together 15 furniture makers and 80 silversmiths to showcase their extraordinary talents and innovative work.
FLUX Console Table by Jake Phipps
A highlight will be two new pieces by John Makepeace, who will be showing his bog oak and silver chair for the Master of The Carpenters’ Company, as well as a mace for the Arts University, Bournemouth. This traditional symbol of the Queen’s authority to grant degrees has been brought into the 21st century by using digital sculpting to form its ripple sycamore shaft which is topped with a silver and gilt flower bud.
Mace by John Makepeace
Newcomers, Byron and Gomez will be showing their Log Stack Cabinet in oak and white resin. This small yet powerful piece, inspired by an early Chinese medicine cabinet, highlights the often overlooked beauty of the end-grain of wood and its drying fractures, which has been used here to powerful effect on the drawer fronts.
Log Stack Cabinet by Byron & Gomez
Other notable furniture exhibitors are Marc Fish, Waywood, Edward Johnson and Jake Phipps, whose sparkling, fireworks-inspired “Flux” Console Table (main picture page 1) shows the innovative nature of his work, using over half a kilometre of individual strands of braided brass electrical flex to give the base its distinctive sculptural form.
Alongside and displayed on and around these unique pieces will be the work of 80 of the finest UK silversmiths, including Rod Kelly and Hiroshi Suzuki, as well as the monumental work of Thalen and Thalen, and the innovative silversmithing of Lasse Baerhing.
Silver Goblets by Rod Kelly
The event is sponsored by The Goldsmiths’ Company, The Furniture Makers’ Company, Cookson Precious Metals, City stockbroker JM Finn, Argex, The Pearson Silver Collection,
The Silver Society, London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Scottish Assay Offices, and silversmith Malcolm Appleby MBE.
Opening times Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm, Saturday 10am – 4pm Admission free