'As You Like It' necklaces in Shakespeare themed exhibition at the Royal Exchange, Manchester

I've just popped into the Craft Shop at the Royal Exchange to see their new display themed around Shakespeare, and very fine it is too.  They are showing a range of innovative work all with a Shakespearean theme, including beautiful silver bangles etched with Shakespeare quotes by Barbara Webster, fab quirky jewellery by Hoolaala, and of course my limited edition pieces made especially to coincide with the current run of 'As You Like It' at the Royal Exchange Theatre.  I do hope you are able to get along to see it.

My pieces (pictured right) are designed to be tiny ‘theatres within a theatre’, and draw on the theme of love discovered and rediscovered that is so much a part of ‘As You Like It’. The woods are a key motif in the play, and mirrors and shadows project this leafy other-world into these little spaces – and where the woods are, things are often turned on their heads.  And there are puzzles to work out too, in keeping with the nonsense that both enlivens the play and moves the story along – why has someone discarded a violin, mislaid a broom and let the bird out of the cage? And why does a clock appear in many of the scenes?

As You like It runs from 29th June to the 6th August. For opening time, see the Craft Shop website here.

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