Meet The Maker - Anchoria Janet

This week in our meet the Maker Series we are interviewing talented graduate designer Anchoria Janet. Based in Largs, Scotland, Anchoria is a recent graduate in Jewellery and Metal Design from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design.

Anchoria draws inspiration from two seemingly juxtaposing things; crochet and brutalist architecture. Her style of work mirrors these elements, bringing together the feminine and the masculine; traditional and modern; delicate and robust; intricate and simple. Fine, precious metal wire is hand crocheted into organic flowing shapes. Thousands of hand stitched loops create clusters of crochet which spill out from the contrasting structural wires forms from which they are held.

When did you first start creating?

There wasn’t really a time where I wasn’t making things. I don’t remember a time where I didn’t know how to knit. I’ve always been teaching myself to make different things and do different crafts. It was mainly to procrastinate studying for my exams in school, but it turned out better for me to know how to crochet than to know whatever they were trying to teach me in physics

Where do you get most of your inspiration from?

Handi-crafts. Mostly crochet, because that is my biggest love, but also knitting and embroidery. There is such a rich history of them being passed down through generations of women, which fascinates me to no end. There is also an endless amount of beautiful stitches and techniques that can translate so well into silver.

What influenced you to become a designer?

Like I said I’ve always liked making things and doing things with my hands, but when I was in school and we were about to do work experience and I was saying I’d like to have a career to do with architecture, or furniture restorations. Just anything where I could create something or do something with my hands and without thinking I just put down jewellery designer. I lucked out and got a placement with jeweller and silversmith, Marion E Kane. I loved it so much that I have been very single minded about making jewellery ever since.

Who are your favourite jewellery designers?

My all time favourite is probably Giovanni Corvaja. His work is so beautiful and skillful, I just hope one day I can be at his level.

Three words you would use to describe your work?

Bold, modern, and kitschy.

What would you say is unique about your work?

Probably the combination of the different types of wire work. Also the scale is quite unique, I’ve not seen many people use crochet in the way I have and I have seen even fewer do it to this scale.

Which piece is your favourite creation?

That is a difficult question. It depends on the day of the week, but it's mostly a tie between the crocheted bangle and the hoop earrings. The bangle because it is so simple in its design I think it shows the the time and effort in the crochet so well. Also while I was making it I counted how many stitches are in it and there are about 2334 give or take a few that I may have miscounted. The hoop earrings are one of my favourites because they are my own personal style. They are the pieces that I would wear the most out of everything I’ve ever made, so much so that I made myself a second pair because I loved them so much.

And finally.... What's next for your brand?

Hopefully to just keep learning and growing and developing my style and collections. I’ve got a lot of ideas of new types of crochet to try out