Gill Rogers

Gill Rogers' training began in 1997 with a foundation course in art & design and textiles. After finishing she went on to study glassmaking, beginning with a course in stained glass and copperfoil techniques. She then studied kiln-formed glass techniques when she enrolled at City & Guilds just before attending university.

It was while Gill Rogers was at Lincoln University that she got her first taste for jewellery making. During her final year of university, where she was studying glass techniques to produce designs for interior lighting, she was given an assignment to design and make a number of objects to promote galleries. The assignment required a minimum of four objects. With a limited time scale, it was then that Gill Rogers first thought of making jewellery using glass.

After spending a couple of years working overseas, Rogers now works in her own studio located at Paintworks in Bristol. Rogers has said she always had a great passion and desire for design and making. Her main focus and goal is to continue to push the boundaries and create innovative designs in jewellery. One of Rogers' short-term aims is to devote more time to areas such as marketing in an attempt to get her work across to a wider audience.

With most of Gill Rogers' jewellery being predominantly made of glass, she has to be careful of what sort of glass she uses, as glass can be fragile, not only in the making processes, but also to the person wearing it. Rogers makes her designs mainly out of borosilicate glass as it is a hard glass with a higher resistance to shock and breakage than soft glass. Borosilicate contains the same properties as Pyrex, which is commonly used for producing scientific laboratory ware, such as test tubes, and also for producing various items of kitchen bakeware. Using borosilicate glass makes it a lot easier for her to create the designs she wants, without the jewellery breaking.

Gill Rogers' main source of inspiration for her designs comes from studies of natural forms. These include icicles, plants, fossils, shells, and corals. Many of her designs represent pattern and texture. Much of her jewellery has an abstract look, but they are still recognisable as natural forms. Each one of her designs has an elegant and smooth feel to them. Gill Rogers has managed to create intricate pieces using very fragile transparent material, as well as making it a solid three-dimensional shape.