16.04.25
Each year our Amps network comes together for our Forum, where we also host our annual Community Ideas Fund. Designed to enable an exciting collaboration between supporters of our network, Amps are encouraged to collaborate on and pitch a new idea that will result in a positive social impact in Dundee. The award exists thanks to our growing community; not only do the network vote at the Forum on which project receives the fund, but the award itself is funded by Amps subscriptions. It’s amazing to see this support stretch beyond our network through each project’s wider impact in the city.
This year, the network awarded the fund to a project that seeks to open up Dundee’s studio spaces to share the creative practices and processes within. In this blog we share more about what they hope to achieve.
With the Community Ideas Fund, we’re going to host a long-awaited Dundee Open Studios event. We want to start with what we know: beginning with the small ‘seed’ of jewellery in 2025 then building to invite all forms of artistic practice to open their doors and let the public see the intriguing worlds of makers in Dundee.
We’re both jewellers who have good links with other independent jewellers in Dundee – we already have a network called Dundee Jewellers Collective (DJC), and have organised two exhibitions of our works in the past: The 4th J (2019) and an Autumn Showcase as part of Craft Week Scotland (2022). There is lovely support between makers at various exhibitions around the city, and the Open Studios will help strengthen these links. We want to build on that and create a framework for a larger open studios event encompassing a wider range of makers, artists and designers in Dundee in future years.
Open Studios are a brilliant way for members of the public to see into the hidden worlds of makers and artists. They’re a behind the scenes look at their craft which builds understanding and appreciation of their skills and work. Dundee doesn’t currently have an Open Studios event, even though they happen in all of the areas surrounding us – Perthshire, Angus and Fife have hundreds of artists and thousands of visitors taking part in and visiting Open Studios. As a UNESCO City of Design, it’s something Dundee is definitely missing!
Dundee Open Studios: the Jewellery Edition would take place over the last two weekends in September. As well as designing branding and materials for sharing the event, we’ll create a map which will guide people and share information about who is taking part – a treasure map to spread the joy of the handmade!
Seven studios across Dundee have agreed to take part in our first Open Studios, with 14 jewellers in those workspaces, and several of those spaces have offered to host jewellers who don’t have spaces that people can visit as guest designers, creating space for more than 24 exhibitors. We also want this event to share the work of emerging designers as well as established independent designers, including new graduates from DJCAD. Being part of the Open Studios will improve the connectivity of jewellers in the city and provide networking opportunities for makers. It raises their profile and further shares where these jewellers work, the services they provide and the kinds of jewellery they make.
We hope this is the catalyst to a bigger Dundee Open Studios encompassing all sorts of makers, designers and artists – linking disciplines and sectors across the city, and bringing local people and those from further afield ways to see the creative work and opportunities our city can offer. Students and graduates will also see an event they can take part in, the networks that the city offers, and provide reasons to stay in Dundee and be part of its creative community.
From small seedlings great things grow. Collaboration over competition! Spread the joy of jewellery!
Islay Spalding is a jewellery designer/maker and founder of Double Door Studios. Since graduating from DJCAD in 2005 she’s developed her practice in garages and workshops before opening her studios, jewellery workshop and exhibition space with the help of DDS’s tenants in 2020. Specialising in bespoke kilt pins and jewellery, Islay takes great joy in knowing that her work is a part of people’s stories. Inspiration weaves between surrealist art, geology, landscapes, architecture, and the beauty of the between, combining organic complexity with modern simplicity, creating unique pieces that are unusual and distinctive yet practical and pleasing to wear. She’s a proud Dundonian and is passionate about her craft and the community, actively seeking ways to promote independent jewellery makers to the public, help new graduates and create networks and links within the industry.
Katie New is a jewellery designer and educator from London, now based in Dundee. After graduating from DJCAD in 1999, Katie returned to London to run jewellery galleries and lecture in design at several art schools. In 2018 she established her home studio The Orangery in Dundee, offering bespoke jewellery workshops that invite people to explore the power of making and celebrate life’s special moments. In her own practice she creates sculptural jewellery in precious materials, creating pieces that explore the relationship between people and plants, and working with eco metals, 100% recycled silver and gold, and ethical gemstones. Her experience in opening up creative spaces to showcase making to the public includes hosting Open Studios across four areas in south London, and the Dundee Jewellery Collective for Craft Week Scotland in 2022.
This new collaboration was made possible through our Amps network’s Community Ideas Fund. Everyone in the network can choose which project they’d like to award the fund to at our annual Amps Forum – find out about the other amazing projects that pitched in 2025. This cash award is funded by Amps subscriptions each year – join Amps and help us make the fund bigger and better!
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