Up next on our #meetthemaker is Whittle Design, run by Kerry and Tilly Whittle. They work together from their small studio in the Cornish Countryside and have developed their own forging, texturing, heating and welding methods working with bronze and steel and produce effects that are only possible when using hand production techniques. Read on to find out more!
Tilly and I started working together around 20 years ago. I had worked previously as a designer in industry and Tilly as a painter and we both moved to our first love of "making".
We have had our current workshop for around ten years and previously started the business in an old cow shed.
We love to travel and are always on the lookout for inspiration when we are in new countries - often in our camper van or recently driving a Tuk Tuk around Sri Lanka. A lot of ideas also emerge from our experiments in the workshop. We love to play and sometimes we create new ideas by luck rather than judgement!
We live in the country and love to walk or cycle - and have recently started playing tennis very badly.
We are most excited by our new work including Tilly’s flower inspired wall hangings and Kerry's head sculptures made from steel fragments.
On occasion the search for new ideas can result in lots of abandoned and failed experiments - sometimes it can be challenging to keep going when nothing is going as planned - but it is usually worth it when a new piece suddenly emerges from the chaos!
Keep doing what inspires you not what you think others will want. You will have more fun - and almost certainly produce more successful work in the end.
Antony Gormley, Jean Tinguely, Charles and Ray Eames.
Two words - bashed metal.
Getting up tomorrow - putting on some music and coffee and doing it all again.
From left to right: Steel and bronze rectangle photo frame, steel and bronze purple hoop mantel clock, and steel and bronze large mantel clock.