Past Commissions
Through the simple and humble actions of noticing, collecting, and handworking, Emily Monk created ‘Emme Wears’ as her alter ego to explore the fringes.
Emily’s life is a story of two halves.
Graduating from UWE in 2004 with a BSC hons in Psychology, she began her working life in mental health. Here, she developed her fascination with how we translate our internal worlds for ourselves and others, a fascination which feeds her work today. Ultimately however, she began to crave a more creative and connected life. Seeking to make a fresh start for herself after becoming a single parent at the head of a neurodivergent household, Emily turned to craft, folklore and mudlarking.
By happenstance living on an old Victorian bottle dump where the River Exe meets the Sea, daily stomps filled her pockets with unearthed tidal discoveries. She found herself passing the time collecting the salt crusted remains of mass produced glass, broken pottery, clay pipes, and the forgotten ephemera of Victorian life. As her hands collected these material traces of the past, her magpie mind sought out symbols in the heads of boat nails, in the letters and patterns on the glass and pottery fragments, and in the stories that persist along the banks of the Exe.
Emily has always naturally gravitated towards making in a practical sense, using her hands to quieten the noise of her internal dialogue.
Holding the foraged fragments from the river in her hands, she became compelled by the idea of creating something from almost nothing. She founded her studio to weave together the river’s gifts with narrative threads, creating reimagined glass beads rich in symbolism, story telling and folklore. The act of making creates a rhythm that holds her steadfast as she navigates the border between the discarded and the treasured, the internal and the external, balance and disorder.
A string of beads from Emme Wears invites touch and reflection.
As you take each bead in your fingers, the subtle variations in shape and finish speak to your senses of natural forms, of the rhythm of patterns that diverge slightly in each and every repetition. As your necklace becomes familiar, your fingers will seek out the shifting of shape and texture between one bead and another, each perfectly imperfect. The ritual of making becomes transformed into one of wearing, handling and grounding.
Each piece is a blend of familiar symbolism and found natural materials, remade into keepsake treasure for outcasts and path seekers.
Let your necklace tell the story of transformation from the familiar into something unique and tactile to behold and carry along your way as a companion.
The Salt Of The Earth Collection
This is a coming of age collection, offering moments of grounding and nourishment to feed your soul.
Within each bead there is beauty to be found, seen, felt and touched. Each is bought to me as salt crusted glass on the River Bed, before being handworked into a treasured tactile adornment.
The motifs embodied in this collection include wandering lines which speak of the shoreline and new found paths. The all seeing eye lifted from salvaged claypipes and sailors tattoos welcomes moments of reflection and encouragement to look beyond. The hourglass symbol allows the wearer to consider lost and found time, and the connection between time and place.
Let your beads become a companion that enriches you, connecting you to the salt of the river and sand of the earth. Bridging the liminal space between material and embodiment. A gift from both the Earth and the Sea.
