Making it Mindfully

Jewellery making is my passion, and my job, and I’ve been lucky enough to have been making jewellery for 25+ years, including sharing this passion with students across London and beyond since 2009. I believe that working on a creative project, like jewellery making, can be used as a form of stress relief and mindful mediation and my aim is to find ways to enhance this potential and share it with others.

I love working with my hands and transforming basic materials into something special – whether this is through carving, hammering and forming to create beautiful precious metal pieces, stitching tiny glass seed beads together to create larger forms, or intertwining fine threads to make complex cords.

I’ve been making and creating things since I was small and have always found it absorbing to work on a project, whatever its type. Creative activities and hobbies have a great value in this way that they can absorb our attention, while at the same time, this absorption gives us a break from and prevents us thinking or worrying about what else is going on in our lives. I think this is particularly true for activities that are hands on, and certain types of tasks can be particularly effective in this way. This therapeutic nature of creativity; some people call it flow, being in the zone, or just being absorbed by the process, for the most part, boils down to a version of mindfulness. I have been particularly fascinated by this idea, working with aspects of this since 2014 and I plan to explore this further, creating projects and information to help my students to explore and make the most of this potential.

Throughout my studies and career, I have chosen to focus my interests around creating jewellery and small objects, using a variety of techniques and materials. Jewellery making is such a varied field that it offers endless scope for experimenting and exploration – it can incorporate a huge variety of different skills or materials. Jewellery can be made of wood, plastic, found objects, recycled or repurposed waste, as well as, of course the traditional precious metals and gemstones. Jewellery can be as traditional, commercial, abstract or alternative as you choose… Jewellery, to me, is wearable sculpture and whatever the materials or techniques you are using, it is fascinating to watch your creation come together before your eyes into something that can be treasured, worn or carried with someone.

Through my studies at art college, working as a jeweller and particularly over the last 12 years teaching jewellery making to adults, the idea of making jewellery as a therapeutic escape and way of focussing the mind has been confirmed and reiterated. It is particularly clear in the importance that the time in class has for my students, not just through the satisfaction of creating, but also in taking the time for themselves and the time spent focussing their minds on specific tasks, away from anything else that is happening in their lives. Recently I have also been noticing that this idea is also gaining wider recognition with more articles discussing this potential in the press, so I feel it is a great time to be working on a project like this.

I am passionate about sharing my skills – helping others to improve and refine their skills as well as encouraging beginners to enjoy the exciting potential of creating items with their own hands, and the therapeutic benefits this can bring. The value of a hobby, in terms of making time for yourself, over recent decades seems to have been lost in a lot of ways, with a lot of people struggling to make ends meet and keep up with other commitments, or just too stressed and exhausted to consider adding something else into their lives. While, of course, there is nothing wrong with enjoying downtime with films, TV or screen time in general, I very much believe that adding some mindfulness and hands on creativity into the day or week can really help people. It helps to reduce stress, and to bring small (or increasing doses) of calm and creativity into their lives, to boost energy and vitality, making us more able to be positive in other areas of our lives.

I would love to help more people to develop jewellery making as a hobby where they can express themselves creatively, and work with their own hands to build and create jewels that they can be proud to wear. More specifically, I would like to help people to develop their skills and maximise their new hobby in terms of mindfulness. Proven to reduce stress and to help with depression, anxiety and related problems, I firmly believe that regularly taking a little time every week, or day, to work mindfully on creative projects will help people reduce their own stress levels, allowing them to feel more in control of their lives and giving more energy and focus to be able to give to their families, jobs or other commitments.

As a teacher – I do this through my regular classes, but I would love to expand this to offer a series of online courses, with accompanying workbooks where students could receive tips and advice from me as well as a series of carefully created projects, with all the information and instruction needed to complete the project and how to work to enhance the mindfulness potential of the task.

I think now is the perfect time for this, as mindfulness has been gaining more recognition over recent years, as has the value of crafts and handmade creations as an antidote to the increasingly digital world that we inhabit. Particularly due to the current pandemic, I think more people are starting to realise how desirable it might be to have an absorbing hobby (or to revive a past interest), as well as to have a break from the ever increasing amounts of screen time and are looking for something that is accessible and enjoyable to try out.

I’d love to be able to help more people discover a little inner calm, as well as their inner jeweller!

I plan to create a series of workbooks, with accompanying online courses, giving regular tips and information on jewellery making as well as how to use mindfulness and ways to make the most of the mindful aspects of different jewellery making techniques and projects, while also building skills and creating beautiful jewellery.

I’m looking forward to what promises to be a fun adventure in developing these projects and sharing them with my students and I hope you’ll follow along with me.

Penny Akester - www.pennyakester.co.uk