Taking inspiration from the Anglo Saxon spiral designs in the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition and linking it to jewellery making, I was asked to teach 2 spiral jewellery making workshops for the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum in July and August 2016 as part of their Warrior Treasures exhibition.

It was a pleasure and an honour to be able to combine teaching jewellery making with my interest in the Anglo Saxons. It also meant I’d have another opportunity to visit the Staffordshire Hoard Warrior Treasures exhibition.

Anglo Saxon design is fascinating and it’s so intricate. I’m especially interested in ancient civilizations, in particular, their art and design, its something that’s always interested me.
A bit about my background, I studied design for 3 years at college,  followed by working as an in-house designer for a number of years, before retraining as a teacher. I also studied silversmithing for 5 years part-time at college and have been making jewellery for a long time (since my teens).

The workshop included many demos, as we covered a number of different spiral designs, from basic spirals to double spirals using different types and thicknesses of copper wire, plus there were a few continuation spiral designs. This was followed by turning these spiral pieces into jewellery pieces and the students were encouraged to use their creativity to personalise their jewellery designs.

Some of the super spiral jewellery created by the students on these workshops:

spiral earrings and pendant

spiral earrings, pendant and charms

variation double spiral beaded cord bracelets

Everyone that took part in the workshops, enjoyed themselves and became engrossed in making their spirals and finished the day with a number of lovely pieces of spiral jewellery, including earrings, pendants, charms and a spiral charm/pendant beaded cord necklace or bracelet.

Thanks for joining me on my creative journey,
Sam Rowena, jewellery artist x

The pieces on display in the Warrior Treasures Staffordshire Hoard exhibition are completely fascinating and enchanting. So much work and skills have gone into creating them. There are a number of pieces that are decorated with spirals, most of these have double spirals, but a few of them have a mixture of different spiral patterns.

Many ancient civilizations across the world used spirals in their artwork. Neolithic examples that are 4-5,000 years old can be seen at the entrance to the Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland as well as Megalithic Temple decoration in Malta.

Spirals are believed to signify the cycle of life and double spirals  the Spring and Autumn equinoxes.

Maybe the use of spirals by these ancient civilizations helped to make them revered mysterious symbols and continue their usage by later civilizations.

Some of the spiral decorated pieces in the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition:

a mixture of spiral and other patterns

double spiral decoration on a bird shaped figure

double spiral decoration on a pommel

Taking inspiration from these Anglo Saxon spiral designs in the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition and linking it to jewellery making, I taught 2 spiral jewellery making workshops for the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum in July and August 2016 as part of their Warrior Treasures exhibition.

See some pieces created by my students on these workshops in my next blog post.

Thanks for joining me on my creative journey,
Sam Rowena, jewellery artist x