Ruth Baird:

I made no jewellery until 1969 when I went to a hobby class while I was living in London. Before that I had done a degree in languages, travelled, and worked in a library. After having a family, I returned to jewellery in about 1973 and joined Fingers when it began in 1974 - Alan Preston included me despite my protests that I didn‘t have enough time. Since then I have worked full-time making jewellery while raising my family in the green, moist surroundings of my home in Titirangi, Auckland.

I had a craft background as a child and did a lot of knitting, sewing, crocheting and embroidery. I had no training in art or design, but did look closely at old jewellery in museums when I travelled. I particularly loved the harmonious colours and strong shapes of artefacts of the time of Tutankhamen, which I saw when I passed through Cairo in 1967. I also loved the sinuousness of the Art Nouveau jewellery of Lalique.

My inspiration for jewellery begins from my feelings of joy in the landscape and the natural world (the seaside when I lived near it, and now the bush and my garden), and my interest in, and curiosity about, its processes, including the cycle of death and regeneration. Many of the shapes and textures I use are derived from nature.

I prefer simple techniques, and using my hands, rather than machines: knitting, crochet, and more recently, twining and weaving, form a large part of my work. Apart from these, fabrication is my main construction technique - I mount titanium, niobium or shell in silver. The colours of my titanium and niobium work I get by anodising, whereby an oxide layer forms and appears as various colours according to minute variations in thickness. Then I use various grinding, punching or painting techniques to create a surface texture.

I try to make my work wearer-friendly and comfortable, as it is intended to be worn by people who are attuned to what I am doing. CV/Resumé (below)

Ruth Baird


jewellery studio
Auckland, New Zealand

Reviews and Comments:

New Zealand's craft artists are among the best in the world, producing works of great beauty, outstanding design and innovative use of materials.
100 New Zealand Craft Artists reflects the remarkable vibrancy and originality of contemporary New Zealand craft. Including ceramics, jewellers, glass, fibre, furniture and book-making, it covers a wonderfully diverse range of media and techniques, forms and functions...
Each artist's work is represented by one image and an overview of their life and work ... Ruth Baird:

Domestic fibre traditions, in the form of crochet, knitting, weaving or twining, are often part of Ruth Baird's delicate jewellery. Most are processes she learnt as a child, and they appeal to her as an expression of female activity. They also fit with her preference for using her hands rather than working with machinery, and provide quiet, contemplative work while sitting in her home studio that overlooks her garden. Strong links between making jewellery and domestic life have thus been established, philosophically and in reality.

Baird was a foundation member of the Fingers collective in 1974. She describes the group at that time as 'amateurs playing it by ear', learning from public feedback and each other. It took time for each of them to develop a clear philosophy, but it was an optimistic period for craft, and contemporary jewellery was a welcome new phenomenon in Auckland.

The changes in Baird's imagery have often been incremental. She had studied the classics and spent time overseas visiting museums in the 1960s. Jewellery from the time of Tutankhamun, and the sinuousness of art nouveau as expressed in Lalique jewellery, were early sources of inspiration, and that leaning to European culture remains a constant. In 1985 she knitted silver wire necklaces that were like collars, perhaps a reference to the Egyptian collars she had seen in her travels, perhaps also a reference to homemade knitted clothing.

Nonetheless, she has looked to her immediate environment for imagery - the sea, the bush and her garden. Her shapes and textures are generally derived from nature, like the recurring image of the butterfly, and leaves. They frequently develop into a series of similar works, perhaps with slight variations of colour, rather than as an edition of identical pieces.

Crocheting has come and gone in Baird's work, and for a while she was weaving wire, but found the process produced very rigid results. She discovered working with a single hook and a length of fine wire to be more flexible, and the results readily became three-dimensional forms. Titanium has been a favourite material since 1986; it meets Baird's need to work with colour. In the past she incorporated colour through the inclusion of small stones and, later, by using paua. Now she oxidises the surface of titanium by heating it with a torch, and produces a range of glorious soft glowing greens, golds and pinks not generally associated with titanium. She varies the processes to produce different intensities of colour, and has developed a concise vocabulary of techniques to express her ideas effectively. She might let twined skeletal leaves of fine silver wire dance in front of a softly hued pair of leaf earrings; or she might play with the colours and fine textures on simply articulated brooches. Her necklaces are a distinctive trademark- tubes of crocheted silver or anodised titanium wire support a series of leaves, the graphic shapes of which are taken directly from her garden. Baird has exhibited nationally, in the USA and Australia. Her quietly resolved work is known for its wearability and sense of joy.

100 New Zealand Craft Artists
Helen Schamroth.
Published by Random House 1998,
ISBN 1 86962 030 5
Winner of the Illustrative Arts section of the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

Customer Endorsements:

I am proud owner of one of your blue single leaf pendants and am wondering if I am able to order another one off you to give to a dear friend of mine for xmas. I get sooo many comments every time I wear it!
Angela, Wellington.