SERPENTINE

Please note, that www.sepentine.co.za is not functioning yet. We are working on a Website for the New Year.

Michael Chandler from Chandler House and Claudette Davis from African Home have come together to create a new line of work made by our talented local craftspeople that aims on using traditional crafting skills and materials, in new and unexplored ways.

The new company will be called Serpentine.

“We never imagined that our initial beaded-pieces would have such a fantastic international response and it is due to this response that we decided on forming Serpentine. There is so much about craft that is tired and dull, but I think by re-imagining what can be done with traditional crafts, we can make beads and wire relevant and desirable again.”

Claudette Davis has been running her Fair Trade Business for a number of years and her knowledge of crafters and the production of their work is vast and invaluable. Michael Chandler brings his eye for design to the line, which is the result of constant exposure to the decorative arts in auction house store rooms, gallery walls, decorator’s projects and reams of interior magazines. It is a dream come true for both Claudette and Michael to be part of exploring such an exciting and unknown area of local craft.

Serpentine’s name stems from the very nature of beads. Small glass beads are reminiscent of a snake’s skin; small, cool-to-the-touch  and when used en masse - capable of creating breath-taking forms. We also liked the play between the word as a decorative art term – and the reference to the reptile, which is often associated with a ‘Wild Africa’.  Snakes are a lot like bead-work too – under appreciated and misunderstood. We hope that through our original work we can have people see local craft in a renewed way.