Goldsmith's Fair 2022 - A Vanilla Ink grand day out!

When it comes to those absolute certainties in life, we can safely assume that only death, taxes and the crushing disappointment of life will apply to everyone. But I’d also like to toss into the mix the dismal sleep you get when setting your alarm for an ungodly hour the next morning. It’s as if your brain is terrified to enter a deep sleep, simply so worried that you’ll sleep through the early morning wake up call that it refuses to actually shut down at all, instead making sure you pretty much float half awake/asleep for most of the night, meaning that when your alarm eventually does go off, you resemble a burst couch that’s been long abandoned at the bottom of a tenement needing picked up by the council and put out of its misery.

Obviously, this was my very first thought as the 5am alarm eventually went off on a dreich Tuesday morning. ‘What the actual fuck am I doing?“ ran through my head over and over like some kind of chant as I walked the dogs down the park at the stupid time 5:12am. Harper and Jess didn’t seem to mind as they frolicked in the pitch black while I attempted to locate their shite as the sideways rain battered my now wide awake head.

A warm shower and a quick change made life slightly more manageable but pleasure turned to pain when the taxi I had booked 24 hours earlier simply did not turn up at the agreed 5:50am. Instead, my phone buzzed excitedly to tell me Colin was on his way. The fun little cartoon car on the map told me he was a fair bit away and the smug pride I had felt inside when I actually behaved like any normal 44 year old would do by pre-booking a cab dissolved almost as quick as Karen’s anxiety began to rise. She doesn’t like being late, you see. To be fair, you can’t be late for a train. It won’t wait, will it?

However, Colin was a friendly chap and discovered a heavy right foot once we told him about out train terrors. It turned out there was nothing to worry about as we were delivered right outside Central Station with plenty of time to spare. We headed to our seats and with a shrill blast from the conductor, our adventure was well underway!

Let me tell you, 6:30am is absolutely a stupid time to be on a big train stretching over a quarter of a mile. Karen and I had no time to pick any breakfast or coffee, so we began to meander our way down the carriages searching for the buffet car. After our long trek past dozens of Rangers fans firing into their Dragon Soup and Buckfast before 7am [I imagine it was for the caffeine content], we located the coffee but not the breakfast as the only thing that resembled the first meal of the day was an oat bar. I treated myself to shortbread as well though. Time to run the Rangers gauntlet again and we were settled back down into our seats, coffee in hand and ‘breakfast’ completed, waiting until we pulled into Penrith where we could meet up with Ellie.

For once our train was on time, rolling into the station at the predicted 7:59am where we met Ellie and our VI trio was complete. Only another four hours to go. plenty of time to do some boring business chat which led us us having to prevent ourselves from raiding the buffet car again for bevvy before it’s acceptable [football fans not included]. However, great company and good chat always makes a journey go faster. Before we knew it, 11:34am was upon us. We had arrived in London Town.

A quick check told us it would be cheaper and more convenient to simply get an Uber rather than fanny around with umpteen tube trains and stressful, noisy journeys. Being autistic means I react very easily when battered with sensory overload. A tube journey is not ideal for me, particularly when I’m not familiar with it and it means several changes no matter which route you choose. An unfamiliar and unknown journey, no matter how short or small makes me really anxious which already sets me off way before and loud noises, strange smells or large crowds of people do. Having an a diagnosis means I understand this more alongside those close to me having more patience with my requests for an easy life.

A very cheery Augustin-Florin picked us up, heading along the busy Gray’s Inn Road to where we needed to go. “Is it like this in Glasgow?” he wondered. “So many roadworks that never seen to end?”. Truth is, it’s not. I had only been in London for less that 30 mins and could feel the claustrophobia creeping in. It is busy, it is loud and everything is so close in and around you. There’s people everywhere and every road we turned down was rammed nose to tail with traffic all blasting their horns at each other. Every street had either roadworks or building work going on. I wonder if it ever seems peaceful or quiet. I couldn’t live that life. As exciting as it is to visit a major city like London, give me the dear, green place that is Glasgow any day.

Because the three of us are led by food, the decision to go to the show or eat lunch first was an easy one. Apart from the world’s biggest queue waiting for a £4 takeaway katsu curry [it smelled amazing], our choices pretty much amounted to Gregg’s, Pret or Starbucks which none of us fancied. That was until we stumbled upon Haz, a Turkish restaurant just around the corner from Goldsmith’s Hall. Hoo boy, am I glad we chose this place! We all decided we could simply have stayed there all day grazing on the meze and starters options, Karen opted for a classic lamb tagine while Ellie and I chose Iskender, which is lamb shish, chicken & lamb kofte, roasted tomato sauce and yoghurt served on crispy pide bread cubes drizzled with butter sauce. OH MY GOOD GOD LADS YOU NEED TO TRY THIS. Service was beyond rapid and to be fair, so was my probable record time for demolishing lunch. It was utterly delicious and I’ve vowed to return every year we head down for the Goldsmith’s Fair!

Haz is situated just around the corner from Goldsmiths Hall

*Iskender*, which I will definitely be having again!

The one downside to the restaurant was the volume. My God, it was noisy. Our server did warn us that “it was about to get very busy” when we sat down but I wasn’t prepared for just how loud one room could be! Maybe I wouldn’t sit and work my way through the menu after all.

A two minute walk round the corner [technically round two corners] presented us with the rather grand and opulent Goldsmith’s Hall. After a quick security check we were in and holy hell, it was hot in there. If you know me, it doesn’t matter where I am or what the temperature is, I’m always running like a steam engine furnace anyways, so this was not pleasant. We began our rounds and were immediately greeted with the familiar smiling face of Sheng Zhang. This was a good start as it gave me a chance to catch up with Sheng after we had a good natter during the summer about both his and our future and how we could work possibly work together at some point and offer studio space or teaching work. It was fantastic to see his utterly beautiful ‘Curved Curves’ sculptural object vessels up close. Man, you could just stroke them all day and be happy!

Next to Sheng was the outrageous structural talents of Lynne MacLachlan, whose jewellery I could lose myself in for hours on end, transfixed by the complex spirals and gorgeous colours. To see these fabulous sculptural pieces in person was a treat and backs up Lynne’s own words that the jewellery is “designed and made to bring colour and joy into your life”. I wholeheartedly agree!

We took a wander upstairs where the full hustle and bustle was in full force. We stopped by Graeme McColm’s stand to view the beautiful jewellery, which is always a delight. We chatted about our love of rutilated and tourmalinated quartz and the snobbishness that can often run deep within the jewellery trade when it comes to gemstones. We both agreed that we like what we like, no matter the cost or perceived worth. A beautiful stone is a beautiful stone no matter its value.

It was after this conversation that I could feel myself sort of losing it. It was hot and I was already through my limit for anxiety. I don’t particularly cope well in public situations but my automatic reflex had kicked in where I appear to be absolutely fine and dandy on the surface without revealing the mechanical churning machine that my insides become. Luckily, I have an amazing wife who, after all these years with me, can see right through the pretendy-I’m-pure-alright act that I do to myself and suggested a break to cool down, in more ways than one.

I think it’s important to put this part into this blog. Yes, I could simply have glossed over it and you wouldn’t have known about my near meltdown [again in more ways than one]. You wouldn’t have read all about how if I had continued without Karen’s intervention, I may well have had a total nuclear event that would have spoiled the entire trip. But then you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to be me in these situations. I wouldn’t get the chance to be honest about how I cope with my existence and the measures I have to put in place simply to go to an industry trade show. If I hadn’t written these few paragraphs, then maybe you [yes, you] wouldn’t have thought ‘hey, I do that too’ and you may not have felt a little better knowing that other people feel the same as you.

You see, if we don’t normalise those little behind the scenes mental health or ASD events, then people will continue to keep it all to themselves and cause a whole heap of issues for themselves or maybe others. I’m not ashamed that I can’t cope with public or social events, nor should you be, either. It’s perfectly normal to feel pressure and unfortunately society has a long way to go to allow people to feel no shame or pain when a certain situation becomes overwhelming. And I think that considering this blog is being published in the week of World Mental Health Day, it would be daft of me to skip over what happened.

So, after a trip downstairs to a nice cool, quiet are, the crisis was averted. Thank you Karen. Time to head back upstairs and see what this show was all about! Next up was a lovely chat with Emma from Shimell & Madden. Those of you familiar with my stone setting manual will know I’m a huge fan, with their work featuring heavily within the pages of the book. Another contributor to the book is the wonderful An Alleweireldt of Oxx Jewellery who was so popular we couldn’t even get the chance to chat! Still, always good to see the lovely jewellery up close though.

Just around the corner from An was the amazingly sculpted craft creations of Tomasz Donocik. If you are not familiar with Tomasz’s work, I would very much urge you to head immediately to his site or Instagram to check out the incredible talents on display. It was fantastic to see his recently created Art Deco inspired brooch, which is a true work of art… now that’s craftsmanship!

Time to head out of The Drawing Room and across to the room opposite where it was delightful to be greeted by a couple of familiar talents. Kelda Young is a fantastic up and coming young maker who has skills in abundance. I had the pleasure of teaching Kelda a few years back while she was still studying at DJCAD and it’s so lovely to her soar within the industry already. Friendly face two was the already award winning Scott Smith, who is pretty much destined to be a real star within the jewellery and silversmithing world! We’ve known Scott for a number of years now and have enjoyed watching his success and how his talents flourish. Between these guys and many others, there’s a lot to be hopeful for within this industry.

Over the other side of the room, my eye was caught by the vibrant, striking work of Faye Hall, whose contemporary wearable objects are a fusion of both embroidery and jewellery. It was nice to chat to Faye as I had never met before and I think she was as much of a fan of my ‘We’re All Gonna Die’ rainbow t-shirt as i was of her jewellery!

On the way out of the Livery Hall, it was good to grab the chance to chat to the dynamic Tamara Gomez, who openly talked about her stint on the first series of ‘All That Glitters’ and how it affected her career. It was particularly pleasing to see her Rough Diamond collection, which is a celebration of the raw beauty of a natural uncut diamond. I was also impressed by her openness and honestly in relation to her career and definitely encouraged her to visit VI after she expressed a desire to come here for classes!

One last person to see was the super talented Eve Balashova, whose stand was constantly busy every time we took a wander past, and it’s easy to see why. Eve is a former Resident here at VIHQ who used a mix of traditional jewellery making techniques, precious metals and 3D printed nylon to make simply beautiful creations. It’s always lovely to chat to her and also a treat to watch her go from strength to strength.

And with that goodbye as we bid Eve farewell, it was time to go. We headed back to Euston Station and managed to grab a pint or two with our good pal Laura from Scratch where we discussed her very exciting plans for the future and marvelled at her her commitment and desire as she continues her training to become a paramedic… what a superwoman she is!

After grabbing some snacks and boarding the train, we were treated to a brief delay before we headed back up the road which ended up being a quieter and more sleepy journey than the way down. We bid farewell to Ellie at Penrith and before we knew it [because we fell asleep], Karen and I were back in dear old Glesga toon. The taxi dropped us off just before 1am, meaning we had been on the go for pretty much 20 hours! It didn’t take long to get to sleep once in bed.

A grand day out indeed and we’re already planning our trip and looking forward to returning for Goldsmith’s Fair 2023. Make sure you don’t miss out too as we would all very much recommend making the trip, however quick it may be!

Out and aboutScott McIntyre13 October 2022Comment