Cheryl Laakes

"By experimenting with colour, texture, and form, I attempt to create jewellery that elevates the wearer, and enthrals the viewer. It is my great desire that by doing this, others might be inspired to step out and explore their own creativity." CL

While other children were shoving each other off of the monkey bars, Cheryl Laakes was in her rec room making shoes out of cardboard and stringing bead necklaces for her mum. At the age of 7, her well-beaded mother decided it was time for this girl to learn to knit, and soon Cheryl’s Barbies were well kitted in woollen bathing suits and mini skirts.

As she got older, the knitting needles made way for sketching pencils, and drawing was the main focus of her school years. Then, during one particularly boring class (actually, it was a very interesting class – so interesting that Cheryl completed the entire semester’s work by mid-term and had nothing to do for the rest of the semester) the knitting needles came back out, and they also successfully distracted her from many a physics class the following year.

Since her school days, Cheryl spends as much time as possible exploring her creativity. Given her tendency to get right snarky without it, her family understands, and they smile and nod and are altogether very encouraging about her ‘creative time’.

Designing has come naturally for Cheryl, and she describes it as not so much ‘designing’ as an action, but as a passive dreaming, then figuring out how to ‘build’ the dream. This dreaming connection, her hope of someday having a studio full of people creating together, as well as her love of wool, led Cheryl to name her endeavour ‘The Wool Gatherers’.

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