Vote for LJS tutors in Craft & Design Selected Awards

London Jewellery School tutors Penny Akester and Julia Rai are among the fantastic makers included in Craft & Design magazine’s Selected gallery and now you can vote for them to collect a prestigious Selected Award.

These highly regarded national awards, first launched in 2009, are based on an 0nline public vote for British and Irish designer makers with work represented in Selected, Craft&Design’s online gallery. The public vote creates shortlist of twelve makers in each of six categories, from which the craft&design judges select six a Gold Award Winner, two Silver Award Winners and three Finalists in each category, with just one person being awarded the top accolade of Maker of the Year.

Penny has been included for her Mindful collection which of soapstone and metal jewels designed to be held as well as worn.

Penny says: “The jewels are primarily necklaces – hanging so that they are easily accessible, their weight as a reminder of their presence.They can be held and used as a worry bead, or used to meditate. Mindfulness is primarily about becoming more aware of the present moment, without judgement – many exercises focus on the breath, but these jewels offer an alternative meditative focus to then enable the wearer to return to their day refreshed.”

You can find vote for Penny here.

Julia is included in Selected for her metal clay work – she is one of the foremost jewellers using the medium. She says that her spare time is currently taken up with working on projects for the Metal Clay Masters Registry and she has achieved Registry IV, the first person in the world to do so.

You can vote for Julia here.