Clio Saskia: Herptiles of Awe and Wonder
“Through my pieces, I try to instil a renewed sense of discovery that is sometimes lost in the seriousness of life, although the most important thing for me is always to say something compelling about the animal in question. Sometimes, a deeper abstraction serves that purpose.” – For Goldsmiths’ Stories, jeweller Clio Saskia talks to Kate Matthams about her background in sculpture, fossiking for sapphires in the Australian Gemfields, creating animal magic in precious metal, and the responsible and ethical use of materials.
“Not many people can say they have mined by hand for gemstones,” Clio Saskia tells me. “It’s a formative element of my practice. I didn’t know how I wanted to use the sapphires I found when I first started digging in the Australian Gemfields, but the element of discovery, of being the first person to touch a sapphire that was formed 150 million years ago, thrilled me.” She speaks just as passionately about the animals she depicts in her jewellery art; birds and reptiles, some of which have roamed the earth for 300 million years and have inspired human adornment since Neolithic times. Nature may be the artist’s most inexhaustible muse, but when history meets the natural world, creative sparks fly even further.
A trained sculptor, Saskia was inspired to learn jewellery-making skills when she saw an orchid hair ornament by Philippe Wolfers in the Victoria and Albert Museum during a research trip. “I was spellbound. It inspired me to visit Goldsmiths’ Fair that year and take evening classes in jewellery-making, where I fell head over heels in love with the craft and the materials. Not only were my sculpting skills transferable, but the final piece was interacted with, rather than left standing static!” So when she was offered the opportunity to move to New Zealand to work alongside a Master Jeweller for six months, she grabbed it with both hands.
While she was there, she heard about the Australian Gemfields, and stirred by “the romance of unearthing sapphires that had not seen the light of day for millions of years,” she moved to the Queensland outback, where she was able to stake a claim on a small piece of land under The Central Queensland Gemfields Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which approves mining leases while recognising native title rights. “I researched where to stake a claim by poring over old geology maps and making an educated guess as to where the old rivers would have run. The Gemfields are all alluvial deposits, so old riverbeds are the main place sapphires and zircon have been deposited over time.”
Fascinated by the raw sapphires she was unearthing, she spent six months mining by hand; a highly physical process during which she developed an eye for identifying raw stones that look much like small pieces of gravel. “The experience instilled in me a sense of responsibility to do these magnificent gemstones justice,” and fired her design creativity. “I was keen to find the most environmentally friendly ways to mine and was delighted to learn about the comparatively small impact of responsible hand-mining compared to large-scale, destructive mining practices.” No machinery is allowed, and instead fossickers — or small-scale miners — use only a few hand tools in their work, so Saskia set out with a pickaxe, jackhammer and spade, and began digging.
The same sense of respect and awe in the face of natural history is palpable in her lifelong interest in the fora and fauna that appear in her jewellery. As a sculptor, “part of the thrill lies in capturing flashes of realism, elements of an animal that say something significant about it,” and some of her most recognisable pieces are from her one-of-a-kind Animals series. A tiny, gold Poison Dart Frog native to the Peruvian rainforests, looks ready to crawl over a rock, his back dotted with black spinels; while the Bearded Dragon Lizard lends the texture of his skin to a sculptural shield ring, whose matte and polished textures blaze out from 18ct gold. A cheerful chameleon ring is one of her personal favourites, for his amused expression and the surprise he holds for the wearer: stroke his sterling silver back, and a polished gold tongue darts out, topped with a multicoloured sapphire.
“Through my pieces, I try to instil a renewed sense of discovery that is sometimes lost in the seriousness of life, although the most important thing for me is always to say something compelling about the animal in question. Sometimes, a deeper abstraction serves that purpose.”
The Bowerbird series was born of the bird’s behaviour rather than its form, specifically, its elaborate nest-building to impress a mate. Rather than straight re-creation however, she designed as if she was the Bowerbird herself, thinking about “which gemstones the bird might choose,” and hinting at the nest itself — and indeed the presence of the bird — through textured gold and engraving. Her major pieces are true works of art, intended to be enjoyed off the body, as well as worn.
The animal magic dates to her childhood, from which she remembers a brooch by René Lalique belonging to her grandmother. “She had a penchant for cute animals in jewellery or ornament form, and whilst my animal interests are rather more exotic, the fascination of these pieces stays with me.” Enchanted by Lalique’s blend of realism with a strong artistic point of view, and ground-breaking use of materials like amber, ivory and glass, she has gravitated towards nature, further influenced later on by the drama and colour of Hemmerle as a house that spans art and jewellery, and Daniel Brush as jewellery’s “ultimate creator”, for his exploration of the materiality of gold itself. Through her own art, she delights in the challenge of capturing the different elements of each species, describing features that have evolved over millions of years and sometimes enabled the animal to survive. As she begins to understand the functions of each animal’s body, she also considers “where on our bodies might the real animal hop, slither, or scuttle to? Would they want a vantage point from which to hunt, or a cosy spot for safety?” Hence, the delicate lizards to be found climbing up the ear, and snakes winding through fingers.
Sometimes during her extensive research, a picture of a particular animal will spring to mind as body adornment fully formed, “winding around the wrist or slithering up a lapel”. At others, the piece will come to her gradually as she becomes more familiar with the animal, studying their habits and behaviour, evolution, and personality. Then she will begin sketching, or for more complex shapes, create forms using wood or wire, 3D modelling to achieve different textures. Once form is resolved, it’s onto jeweller’s wax, in which she sculpts animal forms and tiny details, before they are cast in gold or other metals. Finally, she uses engraving and texturising, choosing the techniques that are most suitable for her chosen material, whether hand-working or computer-aided. Her chosen focus palette of gold and Australian sapphires “is a match made in heaven! Gold is malleable and accepts curves and forming beautifully, and the textures I use create vibrant interplay with the rich greens and blues of the sapphires.” She is currently experimenting with bronze, a traditional sculptor’s material, and is excited about the possibilities for larger scale works into which she would incorporate gold and gems.
Reptiles are her preferred source of inspiration, and snakes in particular, which “have been on earth for about a thousand times longer than humans.” Snakes were common motifs in Ancient Greek jewellery, often worn as pairs of bracelets on the lower and upper arms representing by turns wisdom, healing, rebirth, or the legend of Heracles as a Heracles Knot. For Saskia, the tension between the danger and unpredictability of reptiles and their inherent beauty, finds expression in the naturally flowing forms that make them perfect for adornment. “For me, the challenge is to capture this balance in some way; identifying a moment of activity or a vulnerability that characterises the animal.” As the daughter of a scientist and a psychologist, she has always scratched the surface to find out what lies beneath, and her work taps into the mixture of emotions triggered by that attraction towards something that is not entirely understood. She quotes the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke, who described “in the sublime, a sense of wonder, awe and astonishment merge overwhelming beauty with life-threatening fear.”
One particular favourite, is the Bermuda Lizard double ring, modelled on the Bermuda Rock Lizard, one of the most endangered in the world, with just 2,500 remaining in the wild. Saskia visited Gerardo Garcia, a conservationist at Chester Zoo, who oversees the only successful breeding programme outside of Bermuda. “Thrillingly, the programme has recently reintroduced new lizards back to the island,” she explains, “I was allowed to study and hold (a very precious moment!) one of these lizards, whilst Gerardo shared details of their curious behaviour, evolutionary tactics, and relationships—I found out they are incredibly secretive and quite feisty.” She decided to recreate it in one of her signature knuckleduster rings, highlighting the rarely seen rainbow bellies of the adolescent lizards, with vibrant red garnets and multicoloured sapphires, in a gemstone-set underbelly that is only visible to the wearer.
“Rings allow us to constantly see and enjoy our own jewellery, and many of our most meaningful jewellery purchases come in ring form. I’ve always noticed hands in particular, and rings relay so much information about their owners. For centuries, they have indicated status.”
Inherent in her two-finger rings, is a hint of rebellion, of a mischievous animal winding and weaving across a hand or scuttling away with a flick of a tiny tail. Such individuality, embodies “a confidence to be a bit different, to embrace the unusual and happily stand out,” for both the unusual species she depicts, and the collectors who wear her art.
She has found that her clients to be just as passionate about transparent sourcing and respectful of the earth as she is. “There’s no doubt the extraction and processing of the raw materials for jewellery can have major environmental impacts,” she says, and today, she continues to support responsible mining initiatives, by buying gemstones through companies like Ninteen48, co-founded by mine-to-market specialist Stuart Pool; Fair Trade Gems and Wennick-Lefévre. She has kept gemstones from her time in Australia which are set aside for bespoke pieces, and still buys from the area, as she believes “the management of mines in the Queensland Gemfields is the safest, most ecologically responsible I have come across”.
She works almost exclusively in recycled gold but is currently investigating Single Mine Origin (SMO) gold, which is traceable back to accredited mines, which contribute to their local communities.
“Sustainability is a word I am reticent to use within my practice. I work with raw materials without the possibility of returning these to the earth, or growing new raw materials within my lifetime to replace those I have used. Responsible and ethical would be how I describe my materials, as I do my due diligence with regards to impact and offsetting.”
In the face of constant research and progress in sustainability within the jewellery industry, she views her practice as ever evolving, driven by the same curiosity for the natural world that saw her learn to free dive at the age of 13. “History gives me a deep sense of being in touch with the gemstones themselves, having nurtured them from rough, mud-covered pieces through to sparkling faceted stones and ultimately to finished, wearable treasures,” she says. Science also, has shaped her practice, through the evolution of her beloved reptiles, and the study of how they live. It’s exciting to imagine what this insatiable explorer will discover next, and how she will bring it into her practice.
Written by Kate Matthams | Photography courtesy of Clio Saskia