Bringing treasured items back to life.

The Studio

Meet the conservator behind Silverfish

I came to conservation the long way round. I first took a BSc in chemistry and physiology before following my real passion — an interest I’d held since my undergraduate years. I’ve always loved working with my hands, the beauty of historical buildings, and visiting museums to see everyday items from the past.

After a year working as a ceramicist, I began my postgraduate diploma in heritage conservation at the South African Institute for Heritage Science and Conservation (SAIHSC) — a two-and-a-half-year course covering the conservation of a wide range of materials, including paper, ceramics, metals, and the built environment.

That grounding in science still shapes how I work: understanding what an object is actually made of — its glazes, pigments and papers, and the ways they age and react — is the foundation of treating it safely, with both scientific care and a genuine respect for its history.

Where the name comes from

The silverfish is one of conservation’s oldest adversaries — a small, ancient insect with an appetite for exactly the things I look after: paper, book bindings, glue and starch. Any conservator will tell you they are bad news in an archive.

So naming a restoration studio after one is quite deliberately tongue-in-cheek — a nod to the very pest we work to keep at bay, and to the quiet, patient, slightly obsessive nature of the work itself.

There is a beauty to the word itself, too. I have always loved the way it sounds — and the fact that ‘silver’ sits hidden inside it: a material I restore in its own right. The name holds both at once, then — the humble pest, and the precious metal worth saving.