Earlier this year, I was awarded one of two annual Large Catalyst Grants from the Goldsmiths’ Centre in London, funded by the Goldsmiths’ Foundation. It is a meaningful opportunity, and one I don’t take lightly. This year’s other recipient is Ebba Goring, a fellow Scottish maker and friend, which makes it feel all the more special to share the experience alongside someone whose work I admire.

I chose to use the grant to step outside of my usual way of working and spend time learning new skills from makers whose practices I deeply respect. Through the spring and into summer, I am working with master engraver Malcolm Appleby, and later in the year I will begin a period of training in rub-over stone setting with Inness Thomson. Both are based in Scotland, which feels important to me.

I am now halfway through my time with Malcolm.

The structure is simple: seven days in total, spaced out across the months, with two weeks in between each session to return to my own workshop and practise. In reality, it has become something much richer than that.

Malcolm lives just outside Aberfeldy, in Highland Perthshire. The drive there takes around two and a half hours, winding through some of the most expansive and quietly dramatic landscapes. Each journey feels like a gradual shift away from the everyday. I stay nearby with my friend, Dawn Hynd, in her massage studio set amongst the trees (do check out her practice HERE). There is no phone signal or internet, only the scent of oils and the soft light coming through large windows looking out onto the woods. It feels more like a retreat than a place to sleep.

By the time I arrive at Malcolm’s workshop, I am already in a different frame of mind.

His workshop is attached to his home, and both feel like an extension of a lifetime of making. Every surface holds something of interest, whether a tool, an object, or a fragment of an idea. There is no sense of separation between living and working. Clocks line the walls and chime together on the hour. Nothing is overly ordered, yet everything has its place.

My pied-à-terre while in Aberfeldy — Dawn’s beautiful massage studio in the woods.

Malcolm turned 80 at the beginning of this year, and there are a number of events planned to celebrate his work, including an exhibition at The Scottish Gallery this summer. Spending time with someone at this stage in their career, still so driven to make, is quietly powerful. He works every day. Not out of routine, but from a deep need to continue producing.

We began at the very beginning, making tools.

Malcolm uses masonry nails to create his gravers, grinding them down to very precise forms. I have never made my own tools before, so this part of the process has been unexpectedly absorbing. With the support of the grant, I have been able to slowly build up the equipment needed to continue making and maintaining my own tools at my bench.

My first exercise was to cut straight lines.

It sounds straightforward, but it is anything but. The surface of silver is soft and responsive. It will take a mark easily, but guiding that mark with intention requires a level of control that only comes with repetition. I began a test piece, filling simple shapes with parallel lines, working in different directions so that they catch the light as it moves.

In those first days, I was slipping constantly, the graver moving ahead of me rather than with me. Back in my workshop, I spent the following two weeks returning to that same piece each day. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, something began to shift. The lines became more even. My hand steadier.

When I returned to Aberfeldy, Malcolm introduced curved lines.

It felt like starting again. The movement is different, the control more nuanced. A new graver was needed, subtly altered in its shape to suit the task. Again, I took the work back with me and filled both sides of the silver sheet. By the end of those two weeks, I began to feel a sense of rhythm forming.

This week, in my third session, I arrived feeling that I was beginning to understand the language of the tool.

And then we started hammer and chisel engraving.

Everything changed. The grip, the posture, the relationship between hand and metal. The graver is longer, struck with a hammer to drive it forward. The marks are deeper, more decisive. And once again, I found myself slipping across the surface, without control.

There is a certain humility in returning to this place after more than twenty years at the bench.

When you build a body of work, you naturally refine a set of techniques that allow you to create what you want to make. Stepping outside of that, and becoming a beginner again, requires patience. It asks you to let go of fluency and accept uncertainty.

At the same time, it feels like a privilege.

I have come into this period of training without a fixed outcome in mind. There is no collection planned, no specific design I am working towards. I am allowing the process to lead. During the hours of repetitive practice, my mind begins to wander. Ideas surface quietly. Even within something as simple as a straight line, there is an endless scope for variation.

There is something meditative in that repetition.

What I am finding more challenging is the balance. The practice requires time and attention, but my usual work continues alongside it. Orders still need to be made. Conversations with customers continue. It is a full rhythm, and one that I am still learning how to hold.

Being in someone else’s workshop has been an unexpected gift.

Since setting up my own atelier, I rarely work alongside other jewellers. Watching Malcolm work, noticing the incidental decisions he makes, the way he approaches a problem, the tools he reaches for without thinking — all of this will quietly shape how I return to my own practice.

He and his wife, Philippa, carry with them decades of stories from within the industry. These conversations, often unfolding over lunch at their dinging table, feel as valuable as the technical instruction.

People travel to this remote place to see Malcolm’s work, to collect pieces, to spend time in his orbit. Alongside this, he shares his process openly, documenting his work and tools through Instagram, building a wide and engaged audience. There is something generous in that willingness to bring others into his world.

For now, I am returning to my bench, back to the hammer and chisel, knowing that the next two weeks will be spent finding my footing again.

Slowly, line by line.

AMx