Alice is Best in show as Shetland-inspired cutlery design wins national competition
WHAT do a fiddle scroll and a chopstick rest have in common?
Fair Isle artist Alice Sinclair Best has brought them together in an award-winning combination to skewer the top prize in a national cutlery competition.
Best wowed the judges in the Cutler’s Company contemporary design awards by leaning on traditional designs and incorporating a unique fiddle scroll design on their handles, which in turn act as a rest to hold the utensil up.
The 29-year-old, who had never designed a cutlery set before, only entered the competition as part of her curriculum studying a HND in jewellery in Glasgow.
As well as a cash prize, her final designs will now be turned into a six-piece silver set by the Cutler’s Company and added to their winner’s collection.
Best said she “stumbled upon” the design that would see her crowned champion.
“It really wasn’t what I set out to do,” she told Shetland News.
“I quite like the old designs, I liked quite ornate pieces.
“But it was really looking at chopstick rests, that’s when the idea really found itself. I thought, ‘how can you put a rest inside the cutlery itself?’
“The fiddle idea popped into my head, because balance on a fiddle is so important.
“It’s probably no surprise that a fiddle popped into my head coming from Shetland.”
In her submission to the judges, Best said that music was a huge part of her upbringing and that she was naturally led to the fiddle by her family’s background in folk music.
She said she was “guided by the form of the fiddle’s scroll”, which she said was “one of the most beautiful parts” of the instrument.
Her designs were put together using CAD software, before a prototype was 3D printed as part of her curriculum.
Best worked as a blacksmith after leaving school, so said she had made knives before – but never any other cutlery.
“Making stuff was a huge part of my childhood,” she explained.
“In high school we had work experience in third year, and they initially gave me hairdressing.
“I said, ‘give me literally anything else’. The only thing left was a marine engineering company, so I thought, ‘if I hate it who cares, it’s only for a couple of weeks’.
“On my first couple of days I learned how to weld and I just thought, ‘this is brilliant’.”
She moved into studying jewellery at Glasgow as a way of honing her skills, and is now coming towards the end of her two year course.
Best said she found out that she had won the contemporary cutlery design competition “on the same day that everyone else did”.
“I was very excited,” she said.
“It was the first notification on my phone in the morning. My partner was working from home but he was in a meeting so I couldn’t even tell him.
“I just took a few moments to read it again and again.
“I was trying to think, who can I phone that’s going to be up? So I phoned my dad.
“Everyone was really excited, just as excited as me.”
While Best will scoop a cash prize, the main honour is that the prestigious Cutler’s Company will commission a professional silversmith into a six-piece design set.
Unfortunately she will not get a set herself, but the custom cutlery will join the Cutler’s collection and could be used at one of the company’s famous London dinners.
Asked what comes next for Best, she is unequivocal about what she wants to do.
“Hopefully just lots of makkin’.”
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