blinkidees
blinkidees is the Afrikaans word for “Shiny Ideas” – referring to the brilliant shine of polished silver.
The creative space of this one-women-business is in a small artisan’s workshop in Brackenfell, near Cape Town where each piece is handmade by the owner SuZan Cumpsty. Her work includes sterling silver, brass and copper jewellery and keepsakes, some with hand stamped messages, often secret, sometimes witty. SuZan is passionate about designing pieces with intricate surface texture that are created by using several different methods such as etching, embossing and casting. Her unique high quality pieces make ideal family treasures that can be passed down from generation to generation.
Suzan
A Cape Town based artist that has chosen metal as her primary medium in 2007. Her passion for metal inspired “blinkidees” which she opened in 2010. Initially she taught a variety of metal craft techniques on a freelance basis until the end of 2017. Her first book “Mad About Metal” (a collaboration with 2 fellow metal artists) was published by Metz Press in South Africa in 2016. It was published internationally by Skyhorse in 2018 and it is still available on Amazon. Between 2016 and 2018 several of her metal designs and projects were featured in local Arts & Crafts Magazines. Since November 2017 she’s entirely focused on promoting her own work online and has since sold over a 130 individually hand crafted pieces countrywide.
artist statement
Although I trained as a traditional metalsmith and studied Jewellery Design and Manufacturing part time at Ruth Prowse School of Art I am still learning every day. Making jewellery and other decorative metal pieces is much more than just making things to sell, hand fabricating with metal is my passion. I love being a metalsmith, the work requires me to always improve my skills and a lot of physical labour goes into creating pieces that will adorn the wearer. The feeling of the tools in my hands as each new piece comes to life, is like magic. I learned that connecting with customers is what motivates me to be more creative… they inspire me to grow as an artist. Sending each new piece of to its new “forever home” can sometimes be a little emotional but also generate a feeling of accomplishment and pride. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to do and enjoy this work. Thank you so much for supporting by brand and allowing me to live my dream.
Hey there
Metalistic (noun): a condition that occurs when metal is your passion, your addiction and sometimes even your downfall. When you prefer working with metal above anything else, like socializing with friends or even go shoe shopping. Yeah, that’s me, SuZan, and Metalistic is my word… the one I use to explain my sometimes odd behaviour to non-creatives who fail to understand my passion for my craft.