Hello! I’m Freya and I run Freya Im, an evolving collection of playful wearable jewellery made in my Glasgow studio. 

 

How did you get started?

By the time I graduated from my silversmithing and jewellery degree had pretty much sworn off jewellery and couldn’t see myself returning to it. However, over the last 4 years I’ve found a way to make my practise something I relish. My style was born out of a stubborn reaction against the more formal and highly conceptualised work I had felt encouraged towards when studying. Figurative, humorous, simple brass pieces felt like an antidote!

 

Can you describe your creative practice and processes?

I am always doodling line drawings of people and faces. I find it so pleasing how just with the placing of a nose, eyes and mouth one can create a sort of character and in the same way a few wiggly lines can quickly represent a woman. I work mostly with sheet material and use a piercing saw to cut out the details of each face, bum and boob without a stencil making each is unique. Piercing sheet metal is a brilliantly limiting medium of positive and negative space. It forces me to distill my ideas and drawings to their most essential parts because if there are too many lines cut out on any one piece it can become wobbly and breakable. 

 

What have been your most exciting projects? 

Generally I love a collaboration, it’s not something I always find easy but that’s what makes the results brilliant. I find myself pushed in new directions and exploring new ideas - reissuing the same design isn’t an option and there’s a new set of eyes and way of working in play. I feel like all these elements contribute to making exciting new work and developing and inheriting new thought processes.

 

What do your materials mean to you?

Lots of the materials found in the jewellery industry are a bit problematic. Precious metals, especially higher value ones, have spurious a cloudy origins. Brass is a wonderful material, it’s an alloy typically made from recycled metals and its cost allows for an expressive approach to making. A lot of my influences come from ancient and primitive art and decoration and the patina that can develop on brass is something I love, I feel like it speaks of a piece having a history! That said I also love shining pieces up to a warm glowy mirror. Keeping my work somewhat accessible in price is really important to me and using brass also happens to mean I can charge a bit less for my pieces so its a win win win

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Website - Freya.im