DESIGN

With a passion for her island environment Sheila creates her original designs reflecting nature’s wonderful sea, sky and landscape colours. Orkney’s history and folklore are also a rich medium for her inspiration.

She feels her designs take on an energy while in the research and development process. Developing designs which are a meaningful expression of her chosen subject is very important to her eventual creation.

Following her graduation from Edinburgh College of Art she worked 26 years as a designer in the trade before setting up on her own in 1993.

Throughout her career she has won many design awards in both Britain and Europe. However Sheila feels the challenge is always in what lies ahead and with lots of new ideas ready to develop she will continue to build on her range of jewellery designs.

C O L L E C T I O N S

This website shows Sheila’s collections after 8 years of work. Her designs are recognised as having a unique collectable Northern style, perhaps even Scandinavian in influence as the Orkney Islands were once linked historically and geographically. Orcadians have a strong independent feeling of their island identity.

Each design carries Sheila’s origination makers punch mark, SD (Sheila Dearness being her maiden name). All pieces of jewellery that are required to have a hallmark are independently marked for fineness and are assayed at Edinburgh Assay Office.

Sheila has the close support of her husband Rick who does all the photography and her son Martin who manages all finances.

In her country workshop a small vibrant team work hard to produce Orkney’s premier jewellery. Each piece of jewellery comes boxed with design origination card. The research for each collection is shown on the collection pages in this website. All boxed jewellery includes this information.

TRADITION AND CRAFTSMANSHIP

This picture shows a selection of jewellery being hand finished on a traditional jewellers bench. From the original master pattern the lost wax process is used to make each design in either silver or gold.