Ruth Baird

I try to make my work wearer friendly and comfortable as it is intended to be worn by people who are attuned to what I am doing.

I made no jewellery until 1969 when I went to a hobby class while I was living n London. Before that I had done a degree in languages, travelled and worked in a library. After having a family, I returned to jewellery in about 1973 and joined Fingers when it began in 1974 – Alan Preston included me despite my protests that I didn’t have enough time. Since then I have worked full-time making jewellery while raising my family in the green, moist surroundings of my home in Titirangi, Auckland. 

I had a craft background as a child and did a lot of knitting, sewing, crocheting and embroidery. I had no training in art of design, but did look closely at old jewellery in museums when I travelled. I particularly loved the harmonious colours and strong shapes of artefacts of the time of Tutankhamen, which I saw when I passed through Cairo in 1967. I also loved the sinuousness of the Art Nouveau jewellery of Lalique. 

My inspiration for jewellery begins from my feelings of joy in the landscape and the natural world (the seaside when I lived near it, and now the bush and my garden), and my interest in, and curiosity about its processes, including the cycle of death and regeneration. Many of the shapes and textures I use are derived from nature. I prefer simple techniques and using my hands, rather than machines: knitting and crochet, and more recently twining and weaving, form a large part of my work. Apart from these, fabrication is my main construction technique – I mount titanium, niobium or shell in silver. The colours of my titanium and niobium work I get by anodizing, whereby an oxide layer forms and appears as various colours according to minute variations in thickness. Then I use various grinding, punching or painting techniques to create a surface texture.