Noami James has always loved making things and has been making jewellery since she was 14, when a jewellery workshop opened in Lewes, Naomi started evening classes. Naomi says she knew it was what she wanted to do straight away and cannot imagine doing anything else!
Naomi went on to study jewellery at Middlesex Polytechnic, from where she had work experience with Sarah Jordan and at the Royal College of Art. After college Naomi worked at Jess James just off Carnaby Street before 18 months spent travelling gathering stones and inspiration for starting her own business.
Since then Naomi James has enjoyed working in several shared workshops and has been at Rose Hill in Brighton for the last 19 years. Naomi feels it is fantastic to be surrounded by a group of creative people who produce a wide range of different work, who are there to help and inspire one another. Naomi has been a regular exhibitor at Dazzle exhibitions since she graduated college and very much enjoyed her time managing the London exhibition when it was at the Royal National Theatre in London. Naomi James also travels around the country to sell at various high quality craft shows where she loves showing her work alongside an amazing assortment of quality makers.
She has always designed as she works, allowing the making process to inspire the final design. Many of Naomi’s designs use real leaves, plant structures and feathers to create natural textures on silver giving her work a ‘found’ quality- almost as if the pieces were produced by a natural process. She particularly likes the contrasting textures of different plants which are all combined into one piece of jewellery and are complemented with touches of recycled 18 carat gold.
Naomi also makes unique hand pierced colourful semi- precious stone rings. Although it is not possible to have fully traceable semi precious gems she uses small scale suppliers with an ethical approach to sourcing their stones. Her pieces are all made by hand in her Brighton studio.
Learn more about Naomi here.
