Young silversmith awarded for 'flowing' jug

The Goldsmiths’ company has announced the winner of its annual student designer silversmith competition.

The brief for this year's contest was to design “a water jug inspired by water in a particular environment”.

Competition rules stated that the jug “must reflect any chose environment in its form, scale, function and decoration. It should handle well, to be reflected in its making”. 

The contest is open to any student under 30 in the UK on a BA or Master’s degree course. Musa Butt, a student at Loughborough University School of Art & Design, was chosen as winner for his design inspired by waterfalls and fast flowing streams.

The award scheme was launched in 1994 by Rosemary Ransome Wallis, curator of the collections at Goldsmiths’ Hall, as a way of encouraging more art students to be creative with silver.

The judges this year included Grant Macdonald, Professor Richard Himsworth and Martin Drury from the Goldsmiths’ Company, artist silversmith Rod Kelly and Annamarie Stapleton, consultant to the Fine Art Society in London.

Ransome Wallis said: “The judges were unanimous in choosing Musa’s jug. Musa is an overseas student from Kenya, and has, since a child, carved beautiful wooden sculptures. 

“His natural skill, through the Young Designer Silversmith Award, has been translated into a masterly silversmithing skill. His prize winning carved model for the water jug is now a lyrical hand-raised and hand-chased silver vessel resonating with Musa’s love of natural forms.”

The student himself made the jug he designed in Clive Burr’s Clerkenwell workshop.

The finished winning piece is always presented to the major museum nearest the winning student’s college which this year was Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery. Butt also received a cheque for £500.

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