On Objects That Become Part of Life | The Sunday Journal No.11
Some artists make pictures for walls. Others make objects that quietly accompany us through life. Spending time with Sheana Stephen recently, I found myself thinking about the latter.
Jewellery is, of course, art. But unlike a painting, it is rarely observed from a distance. It is held, worn, gifted, inherited, passed from one generation to the next. It gathers memories almost by accident.
Gold and Diamond Necklace, designed by Sheana Stephen D.A.
Sheana has spent over fifty years making precisely those kinds of objects.
Sheana Stephen D.A. at work
A graduate of Gray's School of Art, she has exhibited continuously since the early 1970's and has undertaken commissions that range from a brooch for Queen Elizabeth II, to a silver quaich for the Paisley Art Institute, a Silver Syme hand for Royal College of Physicians, a pectoral cross for the Bishop of Edinburgh, and jewellery inspired by the haiku of Alan Spence and the paintings of Dame Elizabeth Blackadder.
It's an extraordinary career.
Sheana Stephen with at the Silver Syme hand, made for The Royal College of Physicians
Yet what fascinated me most wasn't any single commission. It was St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.
St Giles, 900 Banners, Image Courtesy of St. Giles Cathedral website.
For many years, Sheana has led a remarkable group of highly skilled textile artists and embroiderers creating the great silk banners that hang throughout the cathedral during the church calendar. Advent gives way to Christmas, then Lent, Easter and St Andrew's Tide, each marked by banners that quietly transform the building. Their current project seeks to bring the focus of worshippers to the central pillars of the cathedral.
I'm sure the 1.7 million visitors each year will admire them without ever knowing who made them.
There's something rather beautiful about that. The work isn't seeking attention. It's serving a purpose. Becoming part of a shared ritual. Returning year after year until it feels as though it has always belonged there.
Listening to Sheana speak about the cathedral, it was clear she isn't simply producing objects. She is part of its life. In the coming weeks she'll once again be involved in the ancient traditions surrounding the Order of the Thistle ceremony, another quiet reminder that art often exists not only in galleries but woven into the fabric of our civic and cultural life.
It made me think about craftsmanship. Not as something nostalgic, but as something enduring.
In a world increasingly fascinated by the new and mass produced, there is something deeply reassuring about people who spend decades mastering their craft. Whether working in silver, gold, silk or thread, the impulse is much the same: to make something carefully enough that it might outlast us.
Blackbird brooch in Silver & Gold, designed and made by Sheana Stephen D.A.
Perhaps that's why Sheana's work feels so timeless.
It isn't chasing fashion or novelty.
It's simply made well, with care.
And that, I suspect, never really goes out of style.