GALA MAGAZINE (Germany), Jan 2010
Record Jewellery
BLONDE MAGAZINE (Germany), Jan 2010
Record Jewellery
View full article here.
DIGITAL CREATIVES, Dec 2009
Record Jewellery
ICON MAGAZINE, Nov 2009
Cat Davison: Feature
Cat Davison Jewellery create original and quirky pieces which are chunky, bold and playful. Davison experiments with different materials including resin, silver, felt and found objects and more recently recycled vintage records as shown. Cat Davison Jewellery also has a collection called Dangers of the Deep, inspired by underwater life as well as a musical collection.
To see a JPEG of the article please click the link below.
Icon Magazine (188KB)
MODISH BLOG, Nov 2009
Eco Friendly Find: Cat Davison
View full article here.
BLANKET MAGAZINE, Nov 2009
Record Jewellery
View full article here.
UPPERCASE MAGAZINE, Oct 2009
Re-Used Records
View full article here.
METRO, Oct 2009
Loud and Proud
Dubbed the modern day Pat Butcher by her friends because of her love of in-your-face, garish earrings, Cat Davison’s jewellery is just that, loud and expressive. ‘I believe all jewellery can be
meaningful. For my wedding, I asked everyone to bring a necklace for me to wear' (inspired by an old Portuguese tradition). A Central Saint Martins’ MA graphic design student, Davison works with
a large variety of materials and believes all accessories should be elevated to art status. She’s also
a big fan of sustainable materials and her current collections include recycled vinyl and patterned acrylic while her new project involves old credit cards. Her designs are retro, playful and environmentally aware.
To see a JPEG of the article please click the link below.
Metro Newspaper (1.8MB)
MICHI GIRL, Jan 2009
Weather Girl
I wish I thought of this. Weather brooches. I could make a fortune. Instead, all I've got is my dodgy weather / fashion puns. I wonder if I can swap one of my puns for one of these brooches?
view article on www.michigirl.com.au
AMELIAS MAGAZINE, Nov 2008
Interview: Cat Davison
Affectionately named Cat Butcher by friends for her love of jewellery big and bold, Catherine Davison is a girl for whom bejewelling herself and others, is a lifestyle with a simple ethos at its epicentre, “it must be fun!” Quality control is herself as the test-dummy, “I won’t make it unless it’s something I’d want to wear”. She doesn’t bother much with new clothes but can’t resist a pair of earrings, and it’s no wonder when you learn of her weird and wonderful aspirations, “one pair of earrings for each day of the year”, she says earnestly, "I’m on number 260”. It gets better. For her upcoming wedding, she’s taking a Portuguese tradition from her heritage and added a Cat Butcher twist - every guest must bring her a necklace, and she will wear them all at once - a photo please!
She came to a Bethnal Green cafe to meet me donning a heavy chain with plastic pizza and chips attached, as well as large colourful earrings made from felt which we later coined “granny-sheek”. And that’s what it’s all about; taking something old/used/with it’s own set of baggage, i.e felt = grannies, and re-working into something completely different. She uses large array of materials including acrylic, ribbon, toy food, and lego ... reinvention of the material world as she encounters it, the possibilities are infinite. She has made earrings from guitar picks and the keys from an old casiotone, and has a range of beautiful bowls made from old recycled records.
You can find her in amongst the stall holders at Camden Market on a Saturday, or online here, and next time you hear the words granny-sheek, remember where you heard it first.
view article on www.ameliasmagazine.com
DIRTY MOUSE, Nov 2008
Profile: Cat Davison
Cat Davison is a graphic designer based in London, and is currently doing an MA in Communication Design at Saint Martins. She dropped us a link to her site which has some interesting work, including a piece pictured above which “represent(s) different accents heard on the radio through typography and stitching.” Nice!
view article on www.dirtymouse.co.uk
TRENDSTPOTTING, Aug 2008
Rock & Bowl
Graphic designer Cat Davison, whose world experience has helped establish her as a creative cultural mind, has used her insightfulness to create record bowls. These unique hand-cast bowls are each made from a classic vintage record, and are moulded to different sizes, thus being able to suit your own taste and allow you to store whatever you want in your bowl. Together with Rog How, Cat opened Heat The Beat Boutique, with the hope of eventually being able to create other items using recyclable records. In the meantime, check out these exclusive rocking style bowls and order online.
view article on www.trendspotting.com.au
DESKTOP MAGAZINE, May 2008
Cat Davison: Best Student Portfolio
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Desktop Magazine (1.2MB)
ARRIVAL & DEPARTURES, Mar 2008
All Things Vintage
On the quirkier side of vintage re-invention and yet surprisingly practical, Cat Davison is warping and bending classic vintage records into bowls. Talk about vintage recycling, she will even take one of your records that is too scratched to play but too loved to get rid of and re-invent it for you. They're quirky, hand-crafted, 100% recycled and utterly unique.
Joanna Downing
To see a JPEG version of the article click the link below.
Arrivals&Departures Magazine (265KB)
MINK MAGAZINE, Feb 2008
Meet Cat Davison
“Jewellery is my calling,” says Cat Davison, the half English and half Portuguese designer sitting in a café opposite me on a gorgeous day in Melbourne’s Lygon Street, Carlton. We’ve met here because it’s close to the home she shares with her “very supportive and very wonderful” boyfriend. Cat, a graphic designer and jewellery designer, has spent half of her life living in India, Thailand, Bolivia and Australia. Where’s home? “England is home, it’s where I was born, but my friends do call me a cultural mongrel,” she says with a cheeky grin.
Cheeky is definitely a word that comes to mind when I think of Cat’s personality, and certainly so when I see her jewellery range. Her collection is all about playful self-expression, kitsch, colour and most of all, fun. I love Cat’s designs for three specific reasons. Firstly, her jewellery is gorgeous. Alive with colour and bursting with happiness. Secondly, there are no two pieces that are alike. Every piece is entirely unique. And lastly, because each and every piece is hand made, hand cut, hand sewn and hand moulded.
‘Cat Davison Jewellery’ officially began in 2004, a year she decided to “become professional” and make some money. “I had been creating and designing since I was a child, always building houses or being inventive in some way,” reminisces Cat. “In fact, my sister was always known to be the orderly one, with all her toys lined in a row and I was Cat, the messy one.” Cat claims that Australia is a more arts friendly country than England and being able to say “I’m a jewellery designer” is much more well-respected here. Becoming a full-time designer was never a difficult decision for Cat who, after graduating from the University of Bristol with a BA Honours in English Literature, had a career as a journalist and arts editor. “In the end, I was sick of critiquing art and not having enough time to make my own,” she says rather matter-of-factly. I remember thinking Cat must be darn passionate about jewellery to have given away such an exciting career. Turns out, I was right. When Cat explained the process of creating her famous resin bangles and rings, her eyes sparkled and her smile beamed. For all the explanation she was giving me about the difficulty of it- the masks, gloves and goggles required, the washing, sanding and waiting to dry, the two litre bucket of resin and the once a fortnight ritual - I couldn’t help but feel that this was someone who truly loved every part of the resin making process. This was a true jewellery designer.
Cat, who owns more than two hundred pairs of earrings, designs bangles, rings, badges, brooches, necklaces, earrings and bowls. Her designs use a range of materials including felt, silver, resin, toy food, buttons, old vinyl and fridge magnets. With a mantra of “the bigger the better”, her pieces simply cannot be missed. When I ask Cat what inspires her, she pauses and says, “It could be anything. Exhibitions, colours, kids and teenagers walking around town, popular culture, artwork, ‘The Flintstones’…my inspiration is all incredibly random.”
Cat runs a stall at ‘The Rose Street Artists’ Market’ in Melbourne’s eclectic Fitzroy every Saturday, selling her designs with like-minded artists and friends. “My boyfriend and I generally pick up some other artists in the morning in our Kombi Van, and we all sit together and have a beer…it’s a really nice feel, almost like having a day off.” Cat also has pieces stocked at ‘Hunter Gatherer’ in St Kilda and Fitzroy, ‘Arthur’s Circus’ in North Melbourne, ‘The T-Shirt Takeaway’ in Fitzroy and online at madeit.com.au, leeloo.com.au and her own soon to be launched online store. You can also browse her range and buy designs from her website catdavison.com.
When I ask Cat what’s next for her “Cat Davison Empire”, as she refers to it, she says “more stock in shops, more markets, continuing my silversmith course, launching my online jewellery store, opening up my own retail space and continuing to evolve and develop my craft. I’m genuinely excited about the future.”
As am I. Cat’s future is sure to be filled with an incredible amount success, happiness and creativity. This is one designer with drive, edge, intelligence and confidence. The perfect combination, don’t you think?
Sandi Tighello
www.minkmagazine.com
SUSTAINABLE LIVING FESTIVAL, Feb 2008
Cat Davison For The Sustainable Living Festival
Cat Davison's funky jewellery made from recycled materials debut in an ethical fashion parade by anti-sweat shop fashion outlet, Hunter Gatherer, as part of this year's Sustainable Living Festival. Six outfits will be paraded to promote recycled clothing and ethical labels.
For more info head to www.slf.org.au/festival.
THE AGE, Jan 23, 2008
Subversive Arts Blooming In Rose Street
'...Cat Davison and Rog How take old vinyl disks and ingeniously subject them to heat, which corrupts their essentially flat shape. Called "record bowls", these wobbly buckled vessels seen to deride the former function of the material. The inner circle that was always devoid of the music remains flat while the tiny recorded grooves convulse in and out as their final waltz, a dance of death for the obsolete sound technology.'
Robert Nelson
www.theage.com.au
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The Age (606KB)
SYDNEY SUNDAY HERALD, Jan 13, 2008
Recycled Finds
'Dy-vinyl. Recycling is the buzz-word for todays most inventive designs making this record bowl an all-round winner at $15. You can buy it from a new website, www.madeit.com.au, that showcases some of Australias most creative design talent and artists looking to promote their wares to an international market'.
www.sunherald.com.au
To see a JPEG version of the article click the link below.
The Sunday Herald (276KB)
FRANKIE MAGAZINE, Jan - Feb 2008
Feature: Cat Davison Jewellery
'The last time we had anything to do with felt, it was those make-your-own, stick on farm murals we had as kids, with cut-outs of sheep and tractors you could move around at whim. Thankfully, Cat Davison wasn't so quick to turn her back on the fluffy stuff, and has instead made a nifty line of earrings and badges out of everyone's favourite crafting material. There are clouds, lightening, monsters, teeth, rocket ships and cacti - all your shirt and jacket decorating needs taken care of, and all designed and made in Melbourne. Prices hover around the $16 - $20 mark, see www.catdavison.com for more details.'
www.frankie.com.au
To see a JPEG version of the article click the link below.
Frankie Magazine (916KB)
ATTITUDE MAGAZINE, Dec 1, 2007
Feature: Record Bowls & Recycled Finds
To download a PDF version of the article click the link below.Attitude Magazine (388K)
THE MELBOURNE TIMES, Nov 26, 2007
Feature: Melbourne Artists
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The Melbourne Times (1.1MB)
The Age, August 18, 2007
I Made It Myself
‘I’ve always liked making things which were a little different. As a kid, I used to make a house for my Lego men out of photo frames and have them drinking “soup” (actually my mum’s shampoo) out of bottle-tops. I now make jewellery and sell it at the Rose Street Market. I think people like it because the stuff I make is irreverent, playful and fun. I make jewellery out of felt, toy food, fridge magnets, vinyl, ribbons, dried paint, photographic film, Fimo, googly doll eyes, origami paper, resin – I’m about to take a silversmithing course so who knows what will happen after that! I like my felt jewellery to be quite random – so sometimes I look at the work of the Surrealists to get some inspiration. The Guggenheim exhibition has got me making lots of teeth. When I’m making my record bowls I just spend a long evening in the kitchen and warn my boyfriend away from the oven; whereas my other buttons, rosettes, earrings and badges just involve a lot of sewing, cutting and gluing. Having the idea is the easy part – actually making something delicate and beautiful takes a lot longer. My food brooches are a hit with the men – they seem to always go for the banana and asparagus for some peculiar reason – as are the bowls made from old records. But a granny did buy a pair of my huge lettuce-leaf earrings the other day, which left me gobsmacked! I love it when people laugh and smile when they see the silly things I make – jewellery HAS to be fun, otherwise what’s the point?’
Louisa Deasay
www.theage.com.au
To download a PDF version of the article click the link below.
I Made It Myself (1.1MB)
Flip:It Online Magazine, Issue 02, March 2007
Wear It
‘Not since you were a tot has it been cool to wear your food! No, we’re not talking about wearing your mum’s Spaghetti Bolognese on your clean white shirt. We are talking about Cat Davison’s range of quirky food brooches. Designed and made right here in Melbourne, copyCat Design has a piece of food for everyone. How about a gelato for summer, or maybe a piece of pizza for your parker? Vegetarians are catered for too with some tasty asparagus while those of us craving something sweet can chomp on a donut.’
Christian Ferrante
www.rosestmarket.com.au/flipbook/Issue02/
