Castro Smith: Magic, Meaning and Mistakes
“The hand of the engraver is the hand of mistakes. You need the errors to give the image character — I started engraving down the shank because my hand slipped once while I was working on a ring – Some of the best engraving is done by mistake.”. For Goldsmiths’ Stories, writer Kate Matthams talks to Castro Smith about his creative inspirations, making magic in precious metal, and the power and joy of making mistakes.
“There’s a magic here, a sense of wellbeing and belonging that I can tap into,” Castro Smith is telling me. He’s speaking on the phone from the island of Camiguin in the Philippines, where his extended family “all live on one street. The sense of community is very strong”. It’s the dead of night, but in the background I can hear dogs barking, birds calling, insects buzzing; the teeming of tropical life. “When I was a kid, this area was more of a jungle. There were insects everywhere; mosquitos, cockroaches, giant tarantulas… Those creatures caught my imagination.” Today, the jewellery made in his London workshop features astonishingly intricate engravings of insects and animals both real and imaginary, drawn from a fertile mind fed by both East and West.
His creative practice is nourished by his roots in the Philippines — the only Roman Catholic nation in Asia, with an equally strong folk tradition — producing tiny creatures of the night and of the deep, of fantasy and mythology on his signet rings. Octopi with waving tentacles reach down the shanks of a ring; two koi carp with feathery fins dance around a central diamond; and a ruby eye blazes from the head of a roaring tiger. From his British homeland, a hare runs towards a moonlit trap, a honeybee hovers over a bloom, and ravens contemplate starry skies. Each one is executed with exquisite character and detail and often, the design spills down the sides of the ring, an abundance of creativity too great to be contained. “The hand of the engraver is the hand of mistakes,” he tells me. “You need the errors to give the image character — I started engraving down the shank because my hand slipped once, while I was working on a ring. Some of the best engraving is done by mistake.”
As a child he would draw for hours and was on his way to becoming a computer game designer when he saw an advert for an engraving apprenticeship in Hatton Garden. He applied, and ended up studying with The Goldsmiths’ Company, completing his apprenticeship at RH Wilkins, which later became Rebus. There, he became expert in the art of seal engraving, a technique designed to leave a raised imprint when stamped onto sealing wax, recorded as far back as Shang Dynasty China and Ancient Egypt. It was later used in Europe for signet rings, with family crests and minutely engraved mottos, which when stamped, would act as the signature on a document. “There’s a depth to seal engraving that lasts. We carve deep, and as the engraving ages, its symbols whisper much more. The scratches wear down and create their own patina for each individual. They tell tales over time,” he says.
The most important thing about seal engraving, is the impression it leaves behind, which is why the carving itself is so much deeper than other engraving. He cites his teacher at Rebus, Shém Beres, with teaching him to be strict with himself and others and keep his tool and bench in good order: “The ring is just the tool, the artistry is in the wax. Shém pushed everyone further — how deep can we go and still maintain detail? It was wonderful to be able to learn in that workshop, full of engravers who had given their whole lives to the art. Their work was in mosques and synagogues, on armour and artefacts.” He finished his apprenticeship with Rebus, wanting to learn even more, and began to dream of Japan.
“I’m drawn to Asia, it’s a part of my identity and the Asian aesthetic is always in my mind,” he says, “Japanese culture influences Filipino and Chinese culture — I love the Japan surplus stores in the Philippines — I guess I grew up romanticising that culture”. His parents met in Japan and his Filipina mother was a Japanese teacher in Newcastle, so when he began to learn about Japanese engraving, he knew he wanted to add new skills to his practice. In 2017, he won a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust scholarship from the Churchill Fellowship, an organisation which facilitates international mentorship, training and support for people keen to innovate in their chosen field back in the UK, after a last-minute decision to apply paid off. He found himself in the heart of Tokyo, studying under master metalworker Kenji Io, and his son and daughter-in-law in their family workshop. He spent a year in Japan, making engraving tools, learning techniques from Japanese masters and meeting some of the country’s National Living Treasures, government-designated master craftspeople considered to be guardians of the highest levels of craft in the country. “I worked with people who make Buddhist shrines and ceremonial armour. It was unforgettable, I made great friends and a real family with Kenji Io as my teacher.” It was a chance for him to consider his own identity as a craftsperson, drawing on the different cultures that fuel his practice: “my work is a cross-fertilisation of Asian and British culture. A lot of the elements of British aesthetic identity are historical, but Japan in particular has a very strong contemporary identity that doesn’t draw on the past as much - look at the present-day role of the kimono, for example. There’s a deep connection to culture, art and religion there. I’m always trying to find a way to draw these elements together.” Most recently, he has applied Japanese chisel skills to the Hellsgate ring, a gash of deep carving in 9ct gold, and the chiseled shank of the Oubliette ring, an onyx-inlaid gateway to the stars.
Since consolidating his style, business has boomed and he now has a committed team of 7 in the workshop, producing a permanent collection of rings and pendants, and working on the popular bespoke side of the business. For the collection, he uses universal symbols “that I know work, motifs that can reach everyone,” like the phoenix, skulls, snakes, different birds and animals, and the bestselling anatomical heart design, which grew out of the Victorian idea of symbolic representation of body parts for different ailments. “There is also cross-cultural significance to our custom pieces. We welcome people in, talk to them and hear their stories — I love that part. What they’re sharing only means something to them; one person could see a particular flower, but for the next it will be full of references. Time, space, smell and emotions run deep, all caught up in one object. It’s a beautiful process.” He wraps up their stories in drawings, in which every element is symbolic, every mark is made to hold meaning for the wearer; acutely aware of his responsibility to produce a unique piece to the highest standard.
From design to delivery, personal relationships and connections fuel his business, especially when it comes to materials. “I’m a serendipitous sourcer,” he laughs. “My suppliers are people who I’ve met on the way. If I meet people in person, I can be a better judge of their heart than the statistics on a website. We all want sustainability and responsibility.”. He favours recycled gold, small-scale production and part-recycled, fully recyclable packaging, “but I think both customers and jewellers are being blinded. We get stuck on key words like ‘conflict-free lab-grown diamonds’ or ‘recycled gold’, but finding truth is hard. We could do with a little less guarding of secrets in terms of real sustainable sourcing so we can make it happen faster.”.
“I’m always driven by visual ideas, but they don’t necessarily translate into something beautiful that people will want to wear,” he admits. “The real skill is knowing how to use the best technique to translate the image and be inventive.” He undoubtedly benefited from the inter-pollination of three years surrounded by craftspeople and artists from other disciplines while working out of the Sarabande Foundation, set up by Lee Alexander McQueen in 2006 to support creatives. Yet the projects with the most significance are not necessarily complex; they are the ones most bound up in the mysteries of creativity. In line with the Asian idea of “obtaining the most characters with the fewest strokes of the brush”, or economy of aesthetic, these days he is drawn to a more minimal style of expression. “But that’s hard to do with iconography. I’m always trying to escape traditional values, but at the same time I’m anchored in the details. People love swirls and texture.”
Despite taking on the mantel of an Ancient art, he welcomes the advent of technology, as long as it supports the craft. Over the years, he has amassed over 1,000 sketches and he has recently started looking into using them to build an AI image library as a way to deepen his aesthetic. “It would be a great starting point,” he enthuses, “but we will always need the personal chat and connection to understand what people are about. I think the dawn of AI will only strengthen the resolve of hand-making. Our hands are amazing, we will never cease wanting to create.”. The whole workshop recently spent a week on a retreat with celebrated stone carver Charlotte de Syllas, during which they learnt to carve new materials. “It was a really special experience just after Covid. I think all of the team were inspired and changed their working style. I’m waiting to set that jigsaw piece into our studio very soon.” An ongoing collaboration with Chinese luxury department store Lane Crawford, has seen themed pieces designed for the Year of the Dragon, for which he worked with jade carvers for the first time, and a series of trunk shows. This heralded the start of a big year. “Every culture has its mythological creatures to which we give certain qualities. In the UK we have lions, birds and unicorns, different elements in family crests. The dragon is hugely important in the Philippines, it pops up in metaphors and idioms, imagery and mythology.”
In amongst the jewellery at Goldsmiths’ Fair, was an oxidised silver egg vessel, rich with neon green butterflies and lined with slick blue lacquer. Personally, he longs to make more elaborate, abstract pieces to express his perspectives on the mysteries of life. “In the Philippines we have complex flavours, that people don’t always understand in the West. Bitter flavours, flavours that are beyond umami… I’d like to push myself in that kind of more complex direction aesthetically. But I always have to balance that with the easy option of those swirls, that I know people will like.”
Written by Kate Matthams for Goldsmiths’ Stories | Photography by Castro Smith & Petr Krejčí