Maria Whetman

I am a jewellery-artist, designer-maker and educator, based at my little workshop in the Devon-Cornwall borderlands of the Tamar Valley, making one-off and limited edition jewellery from recycled silver, sea-glass and pottery sherds, found materials and objects, pewter, copper, brass and tin. I am surrounded here by salty tidal rivers, Dartmoor views, Victorian mining and flower-growing landscapes, there's a lot to be inspired by here, calling my little business FluxPlay because "flux" is the substance mixed and applied to metal to assist with fusion but it can also mean change and adaption, while "play" can mean experimentation and finding joy learning through doing. I love to create professionally made jewellery with a tactile, hand-wrought aesthetic, organic irregularities and a deliberately imperfect, non-industrial finish… I hope that’s what you’re looking for here.

I have always worked with found objects, repurposing materials and combining them with traditional silversmithing skills to create something meaningful to wear, the tumbled sea glass with it's special texture of tiny circles and dips are more alluring to me to work with than mined gems, the pottery sherd that tells a story from a past time and culture, the long rusty handmade nail like a tiny sculpture that was itself made by hand and has long since been released from the wood of the boat that once sailed on which waters and by whom? I make tactile things that yearn to be held, for people who are turned off by the homogeneous, who want something that feels as though it were made for them and them alone.

With an MA in "Design: Maker & Materials" from University of Plymouth, a PGCE from Cardiff University, and a BA.hons in "3D Design: Jewellery" from Central Saint Martins in London, I have decades of experience as a school teacher, a lecturer in FE & HE and private tutoring. I've exhibited across the UK selling internationally, won competitions and awards and have undertaken many private commissions over the years. You can find the mud-larking me as tamar_mudlark_jewellery on Instagram. See some of my jewellery and small object designs from the past few decades by visiting the Collections page on my website or find me on Facebook as FluxPlay Jewellery for updates on available items, appearances at fairs and available workshops when they go live.

You can purchase my work on FOLKSY https://folksy.com/shops/fluxplay which is a similar UK 'version' of Etsy because I choose to no longer sell via the Etsy platform, but you are welcome to view previous customers reviews by searching on Etsy for "fluxplay" then clicking on "find shop names containing fluxplay".

Get in touch

[email protected]

fluxplay.co.uk/

Bere Alston, Devon

Gallery

Tideline stud earrings, silver, brown seaglass, green seaglass.

Maria Whetman

Maria Whetman

Gallery

Tideline stud earrings, silver, brown seaglass, green seaglass.

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