Association for Contemporary Jewellery ACJ

ACJ is a company limited by guarantee. It is managed by a Board of Directors, assisted by the Advisory Panel.

Board of Directors:  Chair Terry Hunt, Dauvit Alexander, Dr. Lynne Bartlett, Ruta Brown,  Professor Jack Cunningham, Janet Fitch, Heidi Hinder & Rebecca Skeels.

Editor of Findings : Muriel Wilson                                 ACJ's Patron is Lady Marie Alexander 

and regional representatives: Karen Dell'Armi, Gill Mallett, Samantha Queen, Gemma Scully, Islay Spalding & Liz Willis

Administrator: Sue Hyams                                         Development Manager: Tamizan Savill

Terry Hunt, ACJ Chair

Terry is a designer-maker who has just retired from his role as deputy head of Birmingham’s School of Jewellery.
The role of chair is his first formal position with ACJ though his involvement with the association was initially as a founder-member, and deputy to Norman Cherry, the first chair. Since those early days he has contributed to Findings, conferences and special events.
Retirement from the ‘day job’ will enable him to further develop his metal forms, which currently explore surface pattern and colour, using titanium and anodised aluminium.

Jack is currently Head of the School of Jewellery at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham City University. Originally from Glasgow, he studied for his first degree at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and latterly for his PhD at The Glasgow School of Art, where he was also Head of the Department of Silversmithing and Jewellery until 2008.
As a maker his particular interest lies in the narrative genre, his work being held in a number of public collections including the Musee des Arts Decoratif in Montreal, the Crafts Council Collection in London and the National Museums of Scotland. In 2005 he curated the exhibition Maker-Wearer-Viewer which toured from Glasgow to Galerie Marzee in Nijmegen. More recently he curated Paradigma and Paradigma 2, which showed at the School of Jewellery, then toured to Escola Massana in Barcelona, the Fei Liu Gallery in Beijing and finally at UK Innovations in Shanghai.

 Lynne Bartlett, Treasurer & Company Secretary

Lynne is a designer/maker and joined the ACJ soon after it was founded.
Having originally studied chemistry and worked for many years in the Chemical Industry, jewellery is her second career.
Her recently completed PhD at the University of the Arts London combined both strands of her interests. The use of colour in jewellery has been a dominant theme in her work and she currently uses titanium and dyed anodized aluminium. She is an FGA and an examiner for the Gem-A Foundation Course in Gemmology and a member of the Colour Group (GB). 

Rebecca Skeels, Director
Rebecca is a designer-maker running her own business since 1994. Over the past 15 years Rebecca has worked on commissions as well as her own collections exhibiting through, galleries, shops, craft shows and trade exhibitions. She is now based in Farnham after completing a residency and solo show at South Hill Park Arts Centre.
Rebecca is now senior tutor for three dimensional design and product design and the jewellery and metalwork pathway leader at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, teaching and lecturing on a continually developing course, working with the jewellers, silversmiths and metalworkers of the future.

Heidi Hinder, Director

Heidi is a self-employed jeweller and metalsmith, currently Artist in Residence at the School of Jewellery, Birmingham. Her collections of work focus on perception; its distortions and illusions, both scientific and imagined. She has been a member of the Association for Contemporary Jewellery since 2004 when she first learned of the organisation and its activities through the ‘Jewellery Unlimited’ exhibition at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.
As a recent graduate (2008), Heidi is delighted to be an ACJ director, particularly seeking to encourage and develop both student and new graduate involvement with this inclusive organisation.  

Janet Fitch, Director

Janet is a writer and consultant on modern jewellery, after a career in journalism and in retail. She has worked for magazines and newspapers, including the iconic Nova, and the Daily Mail, in design and fashion. The Janet Fitch shops in Covent Garden, Soho and King's Road, London, successfully sold contemporary jewellery by emerging designers for over twenty years, and Janet continues to write about, encourage and promote new jewellery design. 

Dauvit Alexander, Director

Dauvit has been a bench jeweller for over 30 years, having trained as a boy with John Gilchrist in Glasgow and then taking a break to study landscape architecture before returning to the bench. His recent work utilising found, corroded iron has featured in books and magazines - most notably Lark Book's "500 Gemstone Jewels". He teaches internationally and is a permanent member of staff delivering the Fine Jewellery programme at North Glasgow College.

 Muriel Wilson, Editor Findings

Muriel joined ACJ on its foundation in 1997, and became its first Hon Secretary. She has edited Findings since it began in the   autumn of that year as a service to members. She had retired four years earlier after a career in arts administration, and relished the prospect of working with designer-jewellers and jewellery – a life-long passion. Her work with ACJ is complemented by a parallel involvement with the Society of Jewellery Historians, for which she acts as Managing Editor for its magazine, Jewellery History Today. She has built a modest collection since 1991, when for her employers, the British Council, she prepared an exhibition of contemporary jewellery for world-wide touring. Muriel is fiercely loyal to ACJ and deeply committed to its future.

Tamizan Savill, Development Manager

Tamizan is a jeweller & enameller, in business for 10 years. She also teaches enamelling and jewellery skills. She works part-time for ACJ developing projects, working on member benefits and helping to moderate the site.

An active member of ACJ-Bristol since 2000, Tamizan was also a Director for two years.