Q: What inspires you in your work?
I take inspiration for my work from many, many things but particularly my everyday surroundings. I live in Dorset, a small and very beautiful county on the south coast of England between a Jurassic coastline that has been designated a world heritage site and the 'New Forest' which is not actually so new having been the hunting ground of William the Conqueror. Beach, sea and nature themed pieces feature heavily in both my jewellery and component work.
Texture and colour are also of huge importance to me – camera phones are a godsend for snapping pictures of inspiring palettes and if I go out for a walk you can
guarantee that my pockets will be stuffed with shells, leaves, stone...anything with an interesting texture on my return.
Q: You are designing jewelry and components, you write blog posts for your own blog and are a regular contributor to Art Jewelry Elements. I’m curious: what does a typical day in the life of Lesley Watt looks like?
There's really no such thing as a typical day for me and I'm really pretty lucky to be able to work in a fairly relaxed way. I usually go straight into the studio in the morning and check out my emails and Etsy sales whilst eating my breakfast. If I'm firing ceramics or bronze that may dictate the activity for the day as I try not to fire overnight when I'm not around to keep an eye on things. Making ceramics is a long process and the process itself dictates my working day once I get going...a day or two making, a day firing the bisque, a day glazing, another day firing the glaze and so on.
When the ceramic kilns are on I may be working in bronze (same process but shorter firing times), designing jewellery, photographing and listing pieces for my Etsy shop, writing blog posts or tutorials...a whole host of things. So while I have no hard and fast schedule and can be very flexible with the way I work things do tend to fall into a pattern and I always have a mountain of things to do.
Q: There are a lot of bead and jewelry artists. Is there a particular artist you admire or who you consider a role model?
Masses of them...when you're part of a creative community you can't help but be inspired by the people you come across. In the metal clay field I'm a big fan of Wanaree Tanner – an exceptional and innovative artist who I couldn't even dream of emulating, who shares her inspiration and enthusiasm and who makes me want