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Stacey Whale is a Upper Moutere based jewellery artist. Her neckalce of gold and diamonds has been selected to participate in the XIV Florence Biennale.
Jeweller Stacey Whale’s necklace of gold and diamonds has been selected for the XIV Florence Biennale Exhibition and Awards, but she needs help to get there.
Whale has launched a boosted.org.nz crowdfunding bid, and donors have given over $9000 of the $25,000 in funding she needs to travel to the exhibition, the exhibition costs itself, accomodation and the production of the necklace.
The Upper Moutere-based artist said the amount of support and generous donations she was receiving from the community was “absolutely wonderful” and “heartwarming”.
Her Florence piece is an elaborate collar made of yellow gold and white diamonds.
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She said she knew she was going to be a jeweller from the age of 15 when she designed her own brooch.
She studied at art and craft design at Whitireia, in Porirua, majoring in jewellery, and set up her first studio in Plimmerton.
Whale got married and moved to London in 2001, where she was selected for an incubator for artists in London.
Dubbed Cockpit Arts, the hub hosted 80 artists under one roof. She was schooled in business development and taken under the wing of mentors.
Her studio was just around the corner from Hatton Garden, London’s famous jewellery quarter, where you could get “anything and everything” you needed to make jewellery: tools, metals, and stones.
Stimulated and encouraged, Whale won a number of awards and accolades.
Whale’s favourite materials are 18-carat gold, and diamonds, both of which feature in her Biennale necklace.
Participation in Florence will not only give her a chance at accolades, such as the Leonardo da Vinci Design Award, but also to promote New Zealand’s contemporary art and design on an international stage.
The necklace itself forms part of a collection that a precious metal casting company in the UK sponsored her to do research and development on. It got as far as the prototypes, but has been “sitting dormant” since Whale came back to New Zealand and had children.
“For me to move on creatively, I really, really need to bring this to light,” she said.
The original prototype of the necklace had “little pods” that she put together by hand, and then had them cast.
This time around, the necklace will be made by printing straight into metal.
Whale described the technology as “very, very modern” that was “pushing the boundaries of jewellery design.”
Whale’s crowdfunding campaign can be found at