I first met Karen Wallace in 2015 at Elements, Scotland’s first festival of gold and silver. A collaboration between the auction house Lyon and Turnbull and Edinburgh’s Incorporation of Goldsmiths, which is responsible for the city’s Assay Office. Between them, they created the Scottish equivalent of Goldsmiths’ Fair. The highlight of Karen’s stand was The Elements Tumbler Cup, which features all the known elements with the exception of silver. which represents itself in the form of the Britannia silver from which the cup has been hand-raised. So, it features 117 engraved elements from H (Hydrogen) to Og (Oganesson) but no Ag (Silver), though Karen confessed, with a twinkle in her eye, that some of the letters in some elements ‘may have become a little juggled’.

This made me recall the Morecambe and Wise Greig Piano Concerto Sketch with André Previn. The pianist was Eric Morecambe and the conductor André Previn, or Andrew Preview as Eric called him. After several attempts of the orchestra playing the introduction and the conductor indicating that Eric Morecambe should start playing, nothing happens. Eric explains he cannot see André and asks him to jump in the air when he should start playing. This works, but what Eric plays has no relationship to the opening of Greig’s Piano Concerto. It was a superb sketch first performed years before Karen was born.

Previn goes over to the piano and looks quizzically at Eric, who is oblivious that the orchestra has stopped playing. He asks Previn if there is a problem. The latter replies, ‘You are playing all the wrong notes.’ to which he replies, ‘I am playing the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.’ Eric is not impressed when Previn plays the majestic opening of the concerto perfectly, and with panache, I doubt there is much wrong with the order of the letters in Karen’s engraving of The Elements Tumbler Cup. I certainly will not be looking for any.

Karen is a larger-than-life character. In 2002 she started studying silversmithing and jewellery at Glasgow School of Art, which is internationally recognised as one of Europe’s foremost education institutions for a creative education. After graduating in August 2007 she started work at John Macintyre & Son retailers of diamond jewellery, gold, silver, watches and giftware with a large workshop for making and repairing jewellery. She started her training at the company under the supervision of a South African goldsmith with extensive industry knowledge. She gradually worked her way up, and when he left, she was promoted to head jeweller responsible for running all aspects of the workshop, from administration to working at the beach. Her highlight was to handmake a diamond heart pendant with over 50 diamonds weighing over 5 carats with a £200,000 price tag.

As a collector of silver, I see Karen not as a jeweller but as a silversmith. It is quite usual for a recent art school graduate who has an interest in jewellery and silver to first become a goldsmith, as this is a good way of building up some cash to become a silversmith. Karen was unusual in working for a commercial jeweller and it is not surprising that her entry into silversmithing did not follow the norm. In addition to establishing a workshop in July 2010, she approached Malcolm Appleby with a view to being taught by him. He is probably Scotland’s finest silversmith and an engraver with an international reputation.

They must have bonded, for in January 2012 she became an ‘apprentice engraver’ to him. This resulted in her developing a considerable number of skills from British gun scroll work, steel engraving and hammer and chisel carving. She also trained under Alain Lovenberg, the Belgian Master Engraver, and is now a deep relief carving specialist. It is not surprising that she eventually started to work part-time for Malcolm. This resulted in some fascinating joint efforts. A customer commissioned an Oyster Box, which Malcolm designed and started working on one of the carved and engraved covers. It was taking far longer than he anticipated, so, each worked on a cover. Both are signed Malcolm Appleby, but Karen’s also bears the initials KW twice. It is a miniature masterpiece.

The Sunshine & Clouds Beaker was designed by Malcolm Appleby and he started it off, but it was mainly engraved by Karen Wallace. The underside is engraved with Malcolm’s full name and the title of the piece, together with Karen’s initials. As with the oyster box, I cannot differentiate Malcolm’s engraving from Karen’s. However, he could not sell it as people wanted work engraved by him. The Pearson Silver Collection was offered it at a discount. We were delighted as it showed that not only was Malcolm a good teacher, but was willing to give his ‘students’ experience.

Although Karen had established her own business in 2010, it was not until later that she worked for it full-time. No doubt conscious of how she has benefitted from skills being passed on to her, when approached by graduates, established makers or tutors asking to attend one of her master class days, her am is to be accommodating. More recently, the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust awarded a grant to Annabel Hood so that she could be tutored in gun engraving by Karen. She now works for Karen and has completed engraving her first gun.

In March 2023 Karen Wallace made history as she was awarded the prestigious Carter Award for excellence at the Goldsmiths’ Craftmanship and Design Council Awards (GCDC), are also known as ‘the gold and silver smiths’ Oscars’. Launched in 1958, on the occasion it was won by Karen, over the 65 years it could have been won, it had only been awarded 43 times as it is only given if there is a clear winner that meets the highest standards of excellence. Additionally, this was the first occasion it had been awarded for an object that had not been made of silver or gold. Karen had entered a steel scroll rifle cover, also known as a bolt action rifle magazine plate, measuring about five inches by one inch. It was also the first time the award had been won by a resident of Scotland as well as the first award for gun engraving or anything relating to gun making.

There are some other points to add as well. Karen only learnt the skills necessary to create the piece on a course just before she received the commission. Although they went beyond the brief, she wanted to put these techniques into practice. Finally, work on the piece was interrupted by the birth of her second daughter six weeks early! She already had an 18-month old son! While the London gunmaker John Rigby & Co for whom Karen was engraving the gun offered her an extension to undertake the work, she was determined to make it in the time agreed. She managed to complete the application form while breast-feeding her daughter as it was simple and she only needed one hand to complete it on her phone. She worked on the piece while her children were playing, or sleeping, or with family.

Unusually, in 2023, the GCDC judges considered two pieces for the Cartier Awards. The second piece was a carafe by Martin Keane, hand-raised from a circular sheet of silver. It was the last of a series of three increasingly more difficult shapes to hand-raise and was considered impossible by some. However, Martin proved them wrong. Seeing what she was up against, it never crossed Karen’s mind that she would win. When Karen asked me write this piece I did not know whether I should tell her that I had commissioned the piece for my collection, but I did.

Karen, the judges described your creation as requiring “stratospheric skill to create. Laurent Feniou, managing director of Cartier UK told those attending the ceremony at Goldsmiths’ Hall, ‘This is a prize that is not given every year – this is an extreme achievement. A massive, massive congratulations to the winner.’ Ann-Marie Reeves, chair of GCDC added: ‘The relevant judging panels and council were in unison with high praise of the incredible level of skill and degree of difficulty demonstrated with the astonishing engraving and carving on her steel scroll rifle cover.’ Martin Reeves did come and congratulate you at the event…….. and in due course I shall be commissioning another masterpiece by you for the collection.