On a pale winter’s afternoon, the silver pendant that Emma Mitchell is wearing shines out, the stalks of its seed head design catching the weak sunlight. Over the past decade, Emma has made a name for herself (@silverpebble) by using silver clay to cast the forms of fossils, leaves, acorns and shells into stunning jewellery. In the beach-hut studio of her Cambridgeshire garden, she teaches others what she describes as this form of “modern alchemy” involving a gas hob and what is, essentially, a waste product from the technology industry. But these are just two of the many strings to her bow. It wouldn’t be extravagant to call this trained biologist, artist, photographer, craftsperson, botanist and author, a polymath (and mother of two girls). While the list of her talents…
