This is me...
I'm Ruth. I grew up in Birmingham. After filling my parents' house with snakes, rodents, parrots and fish, I went to Bristol University to study Zoology (that's Biology without the boring plant bit).
And then on to London, where I spent ten happy, frenetic years as a journalist and editor.
Somehow I picked up a husband, two children, four cats, three enormous dogs and twenty random chickens along the way.
About a million years later, I'm running DoodlePippin from a garden studio in Reigate, Surrey.
And this is millefiori...
Millefiori is an ancient method of manipulating clay and glass to create intricate kaleidoscopic patterns.
The pattern runs through the clay like the words in a stick of rock.
These pieces of clay (called canes) are sliced, and the slices used to decorate jewellery, ceramics, glassware and household items.
It's a simple process, but there's a lot of luck and serendipity involved. And it's impossible to make the same pattern twice!
Meet the Team
Jude O'Connell - Studio Manager
Jude is my studio manager and voice of reason. She's amazing, full of brilliant ideas, copes well with chaos and we laugh a lot.
I couldn't run DoodlePippin without her
(but don't tell her that!)
Loki and Bean - Studio Dogs
Bean (front) is our Weimaraner/ Lab cross. She's way too bright for her own good (she can open all our doors!), is constantly hungry, and never takes no for an answer.
Loki (scruffy) is our four-year-old rescue (originally from Romania, and aptly named after the Norse God of Mischief).
Dave - Logistics - (aka 'Hee Haw')
Dave is my husband and plays a vital role as our logistics manager. In practice that means that he does a lot of lugging heavy items, grumbling, taking things to the parcel shop and general dogsbodying.
Apparently he also has a full time job as a Systems Architect, whatever that is...
What happens next?
Most of the patterned clay is used to make my handmade originals (bangles, earrings, bowls etc), which are generally sold through The Surrey Guild of Craftsmen gallery.
But I also take a reference slice from every cane I make.
The reference slices are cured and photographed.
Digital versions of these slices form the basis of all my designs.
'A thousand flowers'
Millefiori translates directly as "a thousand flowers" from the Italian.
The earliest millefiori is thought to be pre-Roman.
Although the Venetians weren't the first to use the technique, millefiori glasswork made the area around Venice very famous.
Millefiori Originals
Not at all a "traditional" medium - but polymer clay is the perfect vehicle for millefiori; firm enough to hold the design crisply, easy to cure, and available in an infinitely blendable spectrum of colours
I started making jewellery from polymer millefiori in 2014, and specialised in bangles like this one for a long time.
Millefiori Prints
One of the features of millefiori is that it's impossible to recreate a design, no matter how lovely it is.
So in 2016 I started keeping a slice from each cane, and taking high resolution digital copies.
These patterns form the basis of all my prints.
