DONNA BURNS
Jewellery designer & maker, based in Cornwall, UK
Hi, welcome to my website.
I’m Donna, I design and make all the jewellery you see on these pages. I work from my small home studio here in Cornwall, where I live with my family. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by beautiful beaches and wild countryside. I grew up in Cornwall and after living away for many years, returned here in 2016.
I love jewellery, I have always loved jewellery. I have memories of looking through my Mum’s jewellery box and always wanting to try on her rings. Memories of staring in awe and amazement through a Goldsmith’s workshop window as he created beautiful things with magic and fire.
After years of making jewellery for myself, friends and family as a hobby, and later selling silver jewellery as a side line, I decided to make jewellery my full time career. I took the leap in 2017 to follow my passion and enrolled in a BA Jewellery course at Arts University Plymouth as a mature student. I graduated in 2020 with a First Class degree - despite the kind of year that turned out to be! Since then I have been developing my jewellery collection, and selling to other lovers of unusual jewellery since 2021.
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As of September 2022, I am now an associate member of MAKE Southwest (formally The Devon Guild of Craftsmen).
THE COLLECTION
Fluid organic lines captured in sterling silver
The Fragment Collection was developed from experiments I did during the last year of my degree. The original inspiration came from old leaded lattice windows that I saw on a visit to the wonderful Elizabethan House in Plymouth. I found the best way to replicate the diamond pattern and place it on the body was to use netting. I spent endless hours playing with the changing lines as the netting moves, and trying to capture that same movement in other materials - you can see some of my experiments here.
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Like lace, netting obscures what is underneath, but at the same time draws your eye to it, just like jewellery can. With this in mind, during my final module Fragmented Beauty, I played with different shapes on the contours of the body - even geometric ones - but the open diamond shapes that act like tiny windows were my favourite. I fell in love with the fluid organic lines of the cast metal, the imperfect beauty of the flow and drip of each shape - and the Fragment Collection was born.
The new Droplet Collection naturally followed on, taking just the tactile drip from the larger shapes. I am creating smaller complimentary pieces to wear alongside the fragments or alone as cute everyday jewellery.
I have so many ideas for new designs to expand both collections. New products will be added to the shop when they are ready, but in the meantime if you have an idea for a piece that you don’t see in my shop please drop me an email : hello@donnaburns.co.uk.
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I'd love to create something special just for you.
