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Painter Susan Goodall was inspired by jet when she moved into her two hundred year old cottage in Whitby. When gardening she would find lots of rough Whitby jet in the ground.

"I am able to produce beautiful paintings and recycle rubbish"

Susan Goodall, Whitby artist

She said, "I wondered if the jet could be incorporated into the paintings in someway.

"I found that laying the jet onto the wet service of the canvas adheres it like glue, so now I am able to produce beautiful paintings and recycle rubbish at the same time."

Susan decided to carry out some research into the history of the cottage to try and find out where these pieces of jet were coming from.

She discovered that her cottage used to belong to a gentleman called Thomas Bryan, who had a wooden jet workshop in the garden.

Susan said "Well, we found out what used to happen is听they would work on the jet and find flaws in it, or it wasn't any good, so they just threw it away, straight down into the garden." This might explain why Susan has also found some really interesting pieces of jewellery in her garden.

Jet is a hard material to work with and due to its nature can be flawed. Susan said, "We also find wonderful pieces of carved jet that were going to be jewellery and they've found a flaw in the jet so they've thrown it out."

Pieces of Whitby jet found by Susan

She said, "It's a sad thing, as they were such gifted craftsmen they put a lot of work into the jewellery in the Victorian days. It's not like today where they would just polish a piece. They would be sat for hours and hours nearly finishing a bead, only to find a flaw in it."

Susan currently has an exhibition on at Whitby Tourist Information, where she is displaying many of her art projects.