O’REILLYS THE DESIGN SALE 26th - 29th October 2022

11 THE DES IGN SALE | Wednesday 26th – Fr iday 28th of October inspire her. It was there that she learnt her trade of silver and goldsmith.A great example of her early work from this period is a silver Teapot with her signature flower motif on the lid.This teapot is currently on view in the National Museum of Decorative Ar ts and History. Marika’s first visit to Ireland was with school friends. It was on this holiday in Co. Cork that she would meet her future husband, Denis. They stayed in touch with each other, visiting one another over the many years that followed their initial meeting.They were married in 1965 in Marika’s home city of Örebro, moving to Ireland nearly immediately after. It was the initial struggle that Marika had when she first moved to Ireland that most likely reinvigorated her desire to create. She joined a jewellery studio in Sallynoggin called Seabhac, star ted by Elizabeth O’Driscoll. It was also here that she worked alongside Irish jewellery designer Una de Blacam (nee Craddock) for a time. Seabhac proved to be a great diving board for Marika’s career as in 1968 she won The National Craft Jewellery Award at the RDS. Giving her the ability to star t her first solo workshop on South King Street.The business had soon outgrown this premises and was moved to Capel Street, giving Marika jewellery the space to flourish. In the mid-70s there were three goldsmiths, one setter and a polisher employed as well as casters.There were not a huge amount of jewellery manufactures producing cast pieces in Ireland at the time, Marika was cer tainly one of the first in the country if not the only company to cast and design her jewellery in- house. Marika’s keen eye for simplistic design captured the imagination of many and the method of casting enabled her to produce her pieces at a faster rate than by hand. It al- lowed Marika to expand her business at the rate that she did. When I spoke with a former employee, Barry Grogan, who worked in the Capel Street workshop as a caster, he said that they couldn’t keep up with the demand. Women used to queue to get into the shop to get their very own Marika Jewellery pieces, which were highly sought after. He remem-bers having to go up to the shop twice a day to