It stems from my interest in American Indian culture that began when I first travelled to Canada as a child in the late 60s. We visited a tourist attraction where half a dozen First Nation women taught me a dance. The women had beautiful smiles, ornate beaded necklaces, soft fringed garments and wonderful hand-woven blankets. They were kind to me and I thought everything about them was marvellous.

Visiting the Western States over the years, I bought contemporary tribal textiles in Colorado, Hopi and Zuni jewellery in Arizona and on a road trip in 1994 I found a book, ‘American Indian Jewellery of the South West’, by Dexter Cirillo. There’s a section about a Warm Springs Apache woman called Jan Loco. She would go into the desert, find a boulder and use a rock to run a tracery of texture over the silver in a wish to imbue the piece with 'the spirit of the place’. I loved that idea.

My imagination was also captivated by the thought of working outside in the landscape using found, wild tools and a minimal kit of hand-tools. During my degree there was an optional class called ‘Transformation of Surfaces’. I used this as an opportunity to visit beaches on the South Coast as well as the far North of Scotland to find ‘wild tools’, specific stones with which to work my metal. I continued this methodology during my MA, and it’s since become synonymous with my work.