jewellery artist, Sam Rowena Taylor
specialises in wire-work and bead-stringing jewellery and accessories

passionate about beads and jewellery
I’ve had a lifelong passion for beads that started – as a teenager – when I discovered the Covent Garden bead shop on a weekend in London. This Aladdin’s cave of amazing and beautiful beads from all over the world was mesmerising and seemed like another world to me.

“My jewellery journey began with a love for unusual and unique handmade earrings, which I bought from makers at Covent Garden and Camden Lock markets on my annual holiday to London. I longed to be able to create my own bespoke earrings, but didn’t know where to start…  then in my early 20’s, a weekend silver-smithing course gave me the basic knowledge to get started, buy some hand tools and begin experimenting, making my own personalised bead jewellery.”

teaching 
My first career, after studying design was working as a designer, making jewellery as a hobby and as a way to relax and switch off. I then made a side-ways move, retraining as a teacher and teaching design. Teaching jewellery-making came about by accident when one of the colleges I was teaching at, asked me if I was interested in teaching my hobby of jewellery-making.

teaching jewellery-making classes
From 2005 to 2015 I taught jewellery-making classes in adult education colleges, all types of classes, ranging from weekly classes and 1-day classes to taster classes with different community and family learning groups. Since 2007 I combined these with organising and teaching my bebeady jewellery-making classes at venues across Lancashire.

“After 10 years of teaching 15-25 weekend classes each year, I felt I needed to gradually cut down my teaching so that I could start to focus more on my own jewellery making, and in 2017 I took the decision to stop organising classes, and just teach bespoke group workshops.” 

jewellery-making demos & other workshops
Over the years, I’ve done a number of jewellery-making demonstrations for women’s groups, taught workshops for galleries and linked my jewellery-making with my interest in history for specialist jewellery-making workshops at museums.

qualifications
Many of my jewellery-making skills are self-taught and my knowledge has developed over the 30-plus years that I’ve been making jewellery. I studied silversmithing part-time at college for 5 years and have qualifications in silversmithing, design, art and Photoshop. I’m a qualified Further Education and Adult Education teacher with around 20 years of teaching experience.

passing on skills and knowledge
I share a number of jewellery-making skills and some of my designs with you on my workshops and I try to make them enjoyable and filled with creativity,  making them the type of course that I would like to be a student on.

“each of my classes has a theme and covers specific materials and designs. I look at how the designs and skill building flow together, and often will tweak a class, adding new designs and techniques until it flows right.

“I get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from passing on my knowledge and experience, encouraging my students creativity with beads and helping them to develop their jewellery making skills.” Sam Rowena