Marcella Di Mare: Member of the Week

Bask Bindery

Before creating Bask Bindery, Marcella Di Mare worked as an advertising art director for 25 years. Bookbindery  is “equally creative and rewarding,” Di Mare says. Both professions required her to convey a story through design.

Bask Bindery offers journals, passport holders and ipad or phone cases; all in her abstract designs using a wide variety of materials from gold leaf, letterpress or wood cuts. Di Mare creates her own tools when necessary to attain the desired effect.

All the designs you will see on her website are unique. No two are alike. Customers enjoy her products and many of them explain how it feels like they “own a piece of artwork.”

Marcella Di Mare is also a volunteer at Bag Books.org where to helps make tactile story books for people with severe or profound learning disabilities.

Member of the Week: Nicola Hurst Designer Jewellery

Nicola Hurst’s career has been far from static.

After studying jewellery making at Middlesex Polytechnic, she moved back to Plymouth where she successfully opened her first gallery, Nicola Hurst Designer Jewellery, in 2006.

More success followed as she opened a second shop, in 2014, called NH2 in the Royal William Yard in Plymouth.

Hurst’s expresses how she loves to sit at her bench, in her Plymouth workshop , where she creates her jewellery.

Her style is simple, yet sophisticated as she works with clean lines and shapes, getting her inspiration from architecture and occasionally from nature.

Hurst’s abilities go beyond her store’s as she also conducts workshops. These workshops, whether it’s a wedding ring session or simply revamping old inherited jewellery, are a great way to add a personal touch to a piece of jewellery.