New Beginnings

Jewellery – handmade and home grown -
BENCH PEG In these interesting times that we’re all living through. This time at home without the distractions of coffees and visitors has given me the chance to really look at what I do. It made it easier to focus my busy mind. I’m very excited to be launching my new website dianeconnal.com for my jewellery and artworks. My blogs are named Bench Peg. You may wonder why bench peg? Well it’s after the piece of wood that I do a lot of my work on in the workshop. It is attached to my work bench and I saw and drill on it, opps! not meant to be doing that. It’s the place where I do what I do. I love my bench peg (pic of it below). Making handmade and bespoke jewellery my passion. It all started when I was a girl of 15 and used to make fruit and other pieces of jewellery out of Fimo to sell on the street. I had a Hawkers licence. It cost $10 and I had to be interviewed by the police to make sure I was of good character … I passed! Jeff Besos had nothing to worry about at that time! ha ha. It was my first taste of working for myself and selling the jewellery I made. Now here is doing that. As hard as it is to believe now I couldn’t be a manufacturing jeweller back then because females weren’t taken on in the workshop. So, I became a nurse as you do… But the urge to design and make jewellery has always been with me. I then went to Sydney College of the Arts and got a degree in visual arts. Gaining skills and techniques to produce original pieces of jewellery that have a personal meaning behind them was so amazing for me. Those lessons learnt at art school have never left me and I often think about conversations with tutors and fellow students as I design and make my jewellery in my studio now. You can see my love of found objects in the Stone collection and my love of simplicity and colour in my Poppy collection. Stick around, have a wander through my work and join me on dianeconnal.com Images My early Fimo pieces covering my brother. Second photo shows my beloved bench peg.


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