Martin Page (b. 1952) studied jewellery design at Central School of Art and Design, London, and then completed his MA at the Royal College of Art. He worked for many years as a jewellery designer and goldsmith, manufacturing jewellery, silverware, awards and medals before turning to full-time teaching. He still manufactures a number of pieces of work each year, exhibiting them in the UK. He also shows his work in exhibitions and galleries elsewhere in Europe and in Japan and the USA. He has pieces in national permanent collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. Having joined Truro College in 1994 as vocational art and design lecturer, he became head of the Art Department in 2006. He instigated the department’s higher education programme, writing a foundation degree in silversmithing and jewellery and subsequently the BA silversmithing and jewellery course.
About his BAMS medal, We Create Tools, he writes: ‘The quote (ie. the title) was the initial inspiration. Being a craftsman with a passionate interest in tools, I wanted to combine wax modelling with carving. During the idea development stage, drawings of a face evolved into the initial ovoid shape, which then continued, using an image of a flint tool, to consolidate the medal form. Contrasting the lettering of the text on both sides emphasises the idea of solidity from the past moulding the future.’