Polly Gasston

Polly Gasston is a British goldsmith.
Biography
Early life
Polly Gasston was born and spent her early years in Kenya, East Africa. She was fascinated by jewellery from a young age which began when her mother let her empty and examine the content of her jewellery box on the Persian rug beside her bed. She started to learn the names and composition of each item off by heart fostering a lifeong interest and later, Polly's father began a tradition of giving her a book about gold for every birthday.
Polly came to the UK to study for her A Levels. Following this she completed a 4-year course at Sir John Cass College of Art (which is now the London Metropolitan University) and worked in Hatton Garden, the home of the UK diamond industry, for 7 years as a jeweller where she learned, among other things, the perfection of complex metal piercing. After leaving Hatton Garden she did not return to jewellery making until 2007.
2007-present
Polly eventually returned to the bench in 2007 but decided she would specialise in one area instead of returning to her life as a jobbing jeweller. Her experiences as a metalworker led her to work only with 22ct gold and semi-precious stones some of which include Labradorite, Amethyst, Aquamarine, Carnelian, Tourmaline, Lapis Lazuli and Turquoise. In 2009, she was invited to join the Who's Who of Gold and Silver, a directory of British Goldsmiths published by the Goldsmiths' Company.
In March 2012 Polly was commissioned to create a work for the World Gold Council to be displayed at the Gold: Power and Allure exhibition at Goldsmiths' Hall in London - an exhibition of British gold artefacts from the last 4500 years.
She created Wreath, a 22ct gold ivy wreath in the Hellenistic style with interwoven gold buttercups, using a number of traditional metal working techniques. The exhibition gained critical acclaim and on 8 June 2012 Polly gave an interview to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour regarding her work.
The Gasston Family History
Not much is known about the early Gasstons except that they were Huguenot silversmiths from Gascony in France. They came to England after the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, settling in Shoreham, Sussex. They were shipbuilders and later became seamen on trading ships. The majority of the family was lost in a disastrous shipwreck towards the middle of the nineteenth century leaving only Polly's great-grandfather, Alfred, alive, but abandoned ashore because he had contracted chicken pox and thought likely to died at sea.
His son and Polly's grandfather, also named Alfred, joined the Royal Navy as an engineer in 1941, aged 18, later becoming a silversmith and calligrapher, who taught at the Brighton School of Art. He was a talented craftsman who was ambidextrous and would delight his grandchildren by writing and drawing with both hands together, producing text and images that were perfect when looked at in the mirror.

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