Content by Madelyn Ohryn
2o23
I have been fascinated with the jewelry world my entire life. Ever since I can remember, I was beading. It started with little wooden beaded bracelets on flimsy elastic that I would give to my friends on the bus after school. As a teenager, I took on metalsmithing and discovered a passion for all things wearable art. Additionally, as an aspiring journalist, I wanted to explore and write about the world of jewelry and design. In learning about these artists' journeys, I brought myself closer to the people who create my favorite art form. I hope this journal brings you closer to them as well.
Click images to explore artist's stories:
“My jewelry is wearable art. It’s something that I want people to cherish forever and pass it down. It’s something that you can wear as an expression of your own self. I use it as an expression of myself every day. So for me, it’s everything.”
Adriana S. Palacios has been fascinated by jewelry and art since she was a child. She designs elegant necklaces, bracelets, pins, earrings, and rings - many of which feature a gorgeous variety of turquoise stones. Adriana grew up in Taos, a small town in the northern-central part of New Mexico, which remains her home-base to this day. Adriana’s story is one of passion, growth, and love for turquoise.
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Q: How long have you been making jewelry?
A: Well, off and on since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I started making earrings, beaded earrings when I was about five or six to sell at craft fairs with my mother – my mother was actually a weaver back in the day, and my dad is an architect. I took art in school and I come from a long line of artists. And so for me, it just sort of came naturally.
Q: What was it like growing up in Taos?
A: Well, growing up in Taos, I think a lot of people think of it mostly as a ski town. But there’s a huge artists community over there. Georgia O’Keeffe resided there for a long time. So it’s a very spiritual kind place. Growing up there. I think that influenced me. I think being in New Mexico in general, there's a lot of art here. When I worked at a jewelry store, I got to meet a lot of the Navajo silversmiths. They would just come in through the door and say, “Hey, I have something to sell,” and I got to meet them and pick their brains. I’ve met Curtis Pete, Elgin Tom, and Sunshine Reeves, and I aspire to be like them. So many of them were taught by their mother or their father, or their grandparents or their uncle and their stories are just so beautiful. And it’s hard not to embrace and be inspired by all of it.
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Q: How did you start your own line?
A: My husband is a turquoise dealer. He actually talked me into quitting the job that I had at the time, which was designing jewelry for a jewelry manufacturer here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He’s also from a family of old Native traders, trading posts where you can go, and you can buy Native American relics, art, their pottery or their jewelry. I didn’t have the confidence to do it myself. But he gave me some material and he’s like, “Look, I’m just gonna give you material you’re doing this already for somebody else. Why don’t you go ahead and try it out for yourself.” And I made a batch of necklaces and called one of my customers on the side, and he bought everything I had. That’s what gave me my start in my own career.
Q: What do you specialize in?
A: I do beadwork. I am an artist. So I do a lot of other things as well. But I also commission Navajo silversmiths and now I’m learning how to do silversmithing myself so I can make my own pieces. I’m a designer first and an artist first. And jewelry for me is my wearable art and my passion. That’s been my passion since I was little.
Q: What inspires your work?
A: Metal and rocks. What inspires me mostly is the rocks. I will have a lot of cabochons, and I will say, “Oh that needs to be a pendant!” or “That needs to be a necklace!” And then I’ll work around it. They’ll build themselves. So I try to do something different, something that’s not the norm. Because to me, when I look at a cameo, I say, “Man, that’s something my grandmother would have worn and her mother may have passed down to her.” But I wanted to bring them back to life, bring them back into popularity. So I mixed it with turquoise, and I mixed it with pearls to kind of bring it into the now give it a different look. So that people can look at it and go, “Hey, I would wear that!”
Q: Is there a certain way you would want people to feel when they wear your work?
A: I want every single piece of my jewelry to find a good home. So when people are wearing my jewelry, I want them to feel special. I want them to feel like they have a piece that nobody else has. I do a lot of one of a kind. That’s my biggest thing is that my pieces are one of a kind. It’s something that I want people to cherish forever and pass. Each and every piece, even if I didn’t silversmith it, is a special piece. But I designed it, I laid it out, I drew the picture and told my silversmith exactly how I wanted it done. And then when I get some of the pieces back, I bead it and finish it. And now I’ve designed my own end caps, my own hooks and eyes. And t’s just gonna keep going from there. So I’m sort of branding myself as I go. I think each piece is sort of special in its own way, because they all sort of take on their own life. And sometimes I even feel like the silversmith adds something to that piece. So it becomes a collaborative effort. Sometimes they’ll do something by accident that ends up being what I call a happy accident.
Q: What is the hardest part of running your business?
A: I think the hardest part for artists is being able to sell your work. I think, me, having a retail background and experience in that has helped me hugely. And I’m thankful for that every day. Because I see a lot of artists struggle to promote their work and to be able to market themselves. I think that the hardest part is just being able to market yourself as an artist. Because there’s so much stigma about starving artists and all of that. I think that if you’re going to embrace being an artist, you have to be willing to sell your work. And that, I think, is where it becomes difficult because it takes two different sides of the brain to be really noticed. If I’m sitting down and doing artwork, it’s hard for me to stop what I’m doing and turn around and talk to a person. So it’s a very different process.
Q: What is so special about turquoise?
A: When I was growing up in Taos, New Mexico, turquoise was everywhere. When I was young, there was a big scandal about plastic turquoise. When I started working at the jewelry store, I got a really big wake up call that Turquoise is extremely rare. It comes out of the earth one nugget at a time. There’s a mine called Cerrillos Mine by Santa Fe, north of Taos. The Turquoise runs in little veins. So you can know, get a little vein of it. But then that’s it, it’s gone. It’s nowhere near as plentiful as diamonds, diamonds come out of the earth on conveyor belts, and I’m a fan of diamonds. I love them. I love all rocks. But for me Turquoise is extra special because each turquoise mine has its own characteristics and its own color scheme. Some are different, some of them have both blue and green. I specialize in a lot of Kingman and a lot of Sleeping Beauty. The way turquoise forms is water trickling under the Earth’s surface and it picks up sediments as it goes and it collects it and then it makes deposits. And over thousands of years with the heat and the pressure of the earth it forms into turquoise. So when you mined that turquoise, and you get all that vein, it’s gone. So a lot of the turquoise that I have is no longer being mined, there is no more. The rarity, everything about it is beautiful.
Chantal Shen crafts intricate, wearable sculptures as a resistance to the ornamentation of Asian women. As a senior at Parsons School of Design, her current collection is a thesis project. In her artist statement she writes:
“Fear is the driving factor in human survival; in the context of being the other, fear restricts the subconscious by defending itself from being seen as divergent. Within my practice, I fantasize and actualize armor, and spatial elements that engage the isolation of ontological in-betweenness as the other, a separate realm of existence.
Can ornamentation of the Oriental act as bodily protection for existence in duality? My work physicalizes this space as a dreamscape that protects, yet is seductively treacherous. Visual references to Gothic architecture, Euro-mythological motif, and techno-organic design epitomizes the usage of Euro-centric ideals as an attempt to shield oneself from otherness. Simultaneously, using ornamentation to reclaim the Yellow Woman’s experience and transcend being an ornament for White desire.
By sculpting with molten metal, my practice utilizes slow 3D drawing, as the development of subconscious coping mechanisms that inhabit our minds over time. The process of fragile detailing and intimate space-making mimic the act of dissociation however even in a state of mystification the work still emerges. I use white in reference to the multi- cultural intrinsic idea of purity and innocence. My practice plays with dimension-building for the interstitial body while physicalizing the subconscious as a reclaimed netherworld.”
Her online store, and brand, Chachiko, is where her pieces are hosted. Chantel’s designs include cage-like, spikey pieces with a mixture of iridescent stones, chains, and even miniature clay and latex figurines. Chantel sculpts molten metal from a spool and uses a glaze over the top to create a pearlescent effect. Some of the gemstones used in her pieces come from the crystal shop above her apartment.
Q: How long have you been making jewelry?
A: I started experimenting in 2020. Back then I used a soldering iron that’s meant for circuit boards. I started my current collection in 2021, and a couple more month of experimentation I started selling.
Q: How do you make your pieces, what is your process?
A: I do sketches – mock ups, doodles and designs. But I would say my art and process is inspired by a lot of organic plant shapes and vine-like shapes, but I also love gothic architecture. I use a spool of metal, it’s like a mixture of softer metals. The soldering iron that I use is not a blowtorch. It’s a hot pointed tip. And then you melt it, and you can kind of sculpt it out that way. It’s good because there is no flame, and I work out of my apartment. So you kind of skip all of the molding and casting process like with typical jewelry making.
Q: When did you start selling your work?
A: I started selling on Depop (@ chachiko) first, because I just already had an account. From there, I got a pretty decent response. I still sell a lot on Depop like when I have the stock for it. I get a lot of custom requests off of Instagram or Depop. And then the ones on my website are the more expensive and bigger pieces.
Q: Do you like to make wearable sculptures or everyday jewelry more?
A: I kind of like to consider them all to be wearable sculpture. I really love making stuff that people can wear. Because I like the accessibility and also I know it’s a little quicker. I like sharing my style and seeing that other people like it. It makes me really happy. I tend to have a maximalist style anyway. So, with making my own accessories, it’s really fun because I just keep adding on as much as I want. I am trying to take a little step into bigger pieces also.
Q: You are so new in the jewelry world, what else do you think you would explore?
A: Definitely. Yeah, I think I mean, I do eventually want to do silver casting. I have a 3D scanner that I use to scan my pieces to send to manufacturers, but it is such a long process and I am still learning.
Q: What is the thought process behind your work?
A: When I am designing and conceptualizing a piece, I think about this article on Ornamentalism (by Anne Anlin Cheong). There’s a big thought about how the Asian woman has been used as an ornament for the white man. So, jumping off of that, the pieces I’m creating are very intricate, and kind of like ornamentation, but the idea is more as a reclamation. When you’re growing up as a POC, you kind of have to mold yourself to the Eurocentric beauty standard, and those kinds of defense mechanisms that we have growing up can be self sabotaging. That is why there are a lot of spiky things going on in the works, which represents the side of reclaiming the ornament.
Henry Gross is known for his handmade small glass blown pendants. As a skilled glassmith, Henry also teaches glass blowing at after school programs for highschool students in Chicago. His passion for glass blowing emerged after taking a bead making class as a teen, as an adult, he moved on to attend College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Henry’s most popular and well known piece is his spiral stars.
Q: When did you know you wanted to pursue glassblowing?
A: I’ve been working glass for seven years. I took a class when I was 14. And it was just a bead making little two week course at a place called Bill Street Art Center. And I kind of just fell in love with it a little bit. After taking that class, I would always think about it. Once I was closer to 18, I took classes at College for Creative Studies for a semester. I only took one semester because I just wasn’t really made for taking all the other classes like writing and drawing, it just kind of felt like high school. And I just wanted to blow glass.
Q: How did you start Gross Glass?
A: It’s one of those things that was just so gradual. I started my Instagram, and I post all my glass, but a majority of the things I made as a glassblower were just for myself and for fun. And it really took quite a while for people to actually start consistently buying things. So I’d say in the past year, it’s really taken off. And then about like, six months ago, I left my job to pursue this full time. Which has been great, I love it.
Q: What is your process of designing a piece?
A: My process is kind of just playing around and messing with the glass and seeing what comes with it, then figuring out what I like. And then once I find a shape that I really like – I usually prototype it in clear glass because it’s easier. And then I’ll, I’ll say okay, I like the shape, let me make one in color. And then I have a tool box that’s just full of glass rods of different colors. And I’ll go through it, figuring out what’s going to look best. When I do some multicolor pieces, I’ll just kind of put them all next to each other and see what looks good, what I like and, and all that. And it can be a little tricky, because a lot of the glass colors will change when you work them. So they don’t really look in their true form until you use them.
Q: How does teaching impact your art?
A: Younger kids have no preconceived notion about how to do something. They’re so absorbing, it’s really refreshing to see. Kids are way easier than adults in that way. One time, I was determined to make this full necklace chain, but it was taking too long. One of my students just said “Make earrings instead.”
Q: Where do you teach?
A: I taught kids at an after school program called After School Matters at Fireburg Community Arts in Chicago. It’s a place for kids who need somewhere to go to come to, they learn how to make something, and then they leave with a stipend. I love teaching kids. If a kid is interested, they are going to care. If a kid really wants to learn something they’ll learn it. They’re so absorbing and it’s really refreshing to see.
Q: What’s your favorite shape to work with in glass making?
A: Anything transparent. I think glass is special for being transparent. Cear is great and all, but I just love a good light, transparent purple or transparent green that just throws the light and shines or casts a colored shadow, which I find really fun.
Q: What is your favorite shape you’ve made?
A: I love the stars. I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but it’s definitely my most consistent idea. That’s something I’ve been doing for a while now. And there’s also just so many variations you can go off of, it can really change. And I just did those spiral stars. I’m really excited to make more of those.
Alissa Bailey, actor turned park ranger turned jewelry designer, is the owner Chaparral Jewelry. Alissa designs special jewelry that holds the topographic texture of mountains or trails you would find in a map. The idea is that people can hold a place or event close to them. Alissa also uses her skills in lapidary work to inlet turquoise or other precious stones into the jewelry.
Q: What was your journey to discovering jewelry design?
A: I started making beaded jewelry for whatever reason, like one day, I decided to go to the bead store. And I just bought all the things that I thought were cool. And I had a restaurant job at the time, as most actors do. And I started wearing the necklaces that I was making to work when I would serve tables. And I started selling them, like right off my neck to either people who are coming to the restaurant as patrons or to my co-workers. And so over time, what was happening was, I had my co workers wearing my necklaces, you know when they would work. And they were kind of like little walking billboards right for me. And I got into some shops just with my beaded jewelry. And so over those three years, I kind of stopped identifying as an actor and started thinking that the jewelry side of things was kind of cool, and I wanted to explore that a little more. But what happened instead was my roommate in LA, her sister was a park ranger in Yosemite. And some tragic thing had happened with a play that I was in. I had the lead in it. And it was supposed to be my big break to finally get an agent and get representation. It was a pretty big play to be a part of, but they lost the rights to it. So like the week we were supposed to open, we had to cancel the whole show. So I was intensely upset about that. And when my roommate offered to take me to Yosemite, I was like, absolutely. And I was a midwesterner - the only time I’d ever seen a mountain was from my drive from Indiana to California. I never really saw a real mountain range up close, I had never been camping. I had never done any kind of outdoor recreation at all, maybe hiking here and there, but nothing interesting to me. So when she asked when to go to Yosemite, I was super stoked. And there’s this drive you take from LA to Yosemite, on the Eastern Sierra, which is the east side of Yosemite, you take this highway called the US 395. And when you’re taking it north, it’s like one of the most stunning drives you could ever take in your life because you have the Sierra Nevada on your left, the whole drive and then you have the high desert and the White Mountains off to your right. And so you’re just surrounded by this immense beauty. And it was really the first time that I had seen anything like that in my life. It was really impactful. And so that was the first weekend that I camped. My roommate’s sister took us climbing so it was my first time rock climbing. And from that weekend forward, my life was completely changed.
Q: What was it like working at the national park?
A: So I applied for the park service. And I got the job. Within a span of maybe three or four months, I left my life in LA and then moved into the middle of nowhere in Yosemite, pretty much overnight went from the city to living in the remote area of Yosemite. Yeah. And I just embraced it. But yeah, I did that for two years. And while I was working and living in the park, I was still making beaded jewelry. And I got into a few little shops in the small mountain towns, you know, and that’s when my work kind of started becoming inspired by my surroundings.
Q: How did you branch out into metalsmithing?
A: I knew I liked to design jewelry. And I thought it would be really cool if I could learn how to be a metalsmith, because I had been working with beads. So I found a school in San Francisco. I was able to register and I took pretty much a vocational program with the idea that once you finish the three month course, you’ll be able to be a bench jeweler, which basically means that you can work for other jewelers as a repair jeweler, or what have you, just in the industry in some way. While I was taking classes, and living in the Bay Area, I found myself missing the mountain because I had just come from living there for two years. So I was like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could wear a piece of your favorite place around with you all the time.” So as I started learning about metal smithing, and how to solder and how to do all these things, that’s like the first time that I had the idea of being able to carry the mountains with you. And so when I finished school, that’s when I was like, Alright, I want to work for myself. And I want to have my own line of jewelry. And I want to try and figure out how to, like, make the idea I have in my head of wearable mountains.
Q: Who did you work for in the industry?
A: I worked under Sharon Zimmerman and Luana Coonan for two years out of school, all the while, working service jobs to pay the rent. I had enough money with other girlfriends of mine that are jewelers that I met in school, for this little shitty warehouse space in Oakland. And so when COVID happened, I lost my serving job, you know, and all of a sudden I was jobless, and the whole world was falling apart. I had more than enough time at that point to figure out how to make the wearable mountains. So after a lot of trial and error, I figured out how to make it work. And I officially launched my business, I went full time with topographic jewelry in the summer of 2020. So I’ve only had the line for about three years. But from the very start, it just has been growing. Yeah. So it’s been super cool. I’m definitely living out what I’ve always wanted, but like I said, it took a long time to get here – a solid 10 years for me to get this.
Q: Do the stones you use in your pieces have any special meaning?
A: A lot of people send me their heirloom stones to repurpose, which I really love to do. Being able to repurpose it for people and reimagine it is cool. When I started making the topographic pieces I didn’t know how to do inlay. Yeah, like turquoise, inlays, that kind of stuff, and stone cutting and polishing and all of that. So I kind of thought when the line was starting to do really well and I started to make a little bit of money that I could learn that. I thought it’d be cool to be able to fill the river beds with turquoise to represent the rivers or the oceans or what have you. So I learned through a school in New Mexico. I have a tie to Albuquerque, just with family and friends. So I went out to visit some family. And I took a stone cutting class while I was there. And learned how to do crushed turquoise inlay. But I learned that and then that took my work to the next level.
Q: What would you say you want people to feel when they wear your work?
A: I think it all stems back to why I wanted to make these in the first place. The feeling when you look down at your ring or your necklace or whatever and immediately, it brings back those memories of your favorite place and whatever moment in life those places hold for you. Because I know for me, Yosemite, I have a lot of pieces of Yosemite, because it means so much to me. I wanted to be able to have that around my neck and always have my favorite place close to me. Because that’s what brings me happiness. joy, peace and solitude. And that’s what the mountains mean to me.
Shana Cave, 24, designs and metalsmiths stunning silver floral jewelry with bezel set gems. She attended Virginia Commonwealth University to study at their Crafts art school where she became interested in jewelry. Now, Shana resides in Brooklyn where she works and creates jewelry at Brooklyn Metal Works studio. Shana has designed pieces for figures of notoriety in the celebrity world, but what’s most important to her is maintaining her relationship with her audience. ​
Q: So what is your artistic process? How do your ideas flow?
A: Yeah, that’s a good question. That’s something that I wish I had one answer to but it’s constantly changing because projects have different processes. I have noticed that as much as I want to design off the dome it’s really hard for me to even have something to draw around. I don’t know the material sizing or proportion that’s already existing in the world. So what I design usually is through putting things together physically and then, either seeing that as the blueprint and then designing around that with drawing. My thing is, I’ll have an idea. And then that takes me years to even make it because the idea is ephemeral. And then I have to find all the materials that do exactly what I want it to do.
Q: What is special about your jewelry process to you?
A: A lot of my work is kind of self reflective. Anytime you make something that you wear, to me, it’s a stance, saying something about yourself. And so it just makes me think a lot about who I am and like the things that I do. I cry a lot and I’ve always cried a lot. And I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation between tears and the weight of love or sadness and specifically tears and then how that translates to the material weight of jewelry. These blue gems I’ve been working with remind me a lot of those tears. So I’m bringing myself closer to a point where I do something with these ideas. Until then, I try not to force it too hard. Especially since I have grown so much within the last two or three years. I definitely get in a mindset where I think I try to push myself to do something else that’s star striking and stuff. But I’m trying not to make things for the gimmick of virality. And especially with the materials I’m using, like it’s so expensive that if I’m making something that I don’t wear personally in my life, it’s just such a waste of money. I have necklaces that I’ve made just for when I was in the peak of celebrity longing, and I was like, oh, this is going to go crazy. But I never wore it personally. So I just have been taking it apart slowly and using the parts for other pieces.
Q: What are your feelings about the jewelry industry?
A: I’m not sure I’m in the jewelry industry. But this industry I’m in - I wish I knew how success was just like a high, essentially. You reach these points where you are like, oh I made it. But the high wears off. Work is the most neutral state that you can be in – I’m always going to have to work. When I first started, I was not doing well. I didn’t believe in myself, it was really random that all this shit happened to me. I had really low self esteem when I started. The story is actually funny. I had checked out. I was going to be an au pair in Turkey for like a few months because I was living at home after I graduated and I just didn’t believe in myself. And I was like, I’m just going to travel the world until I figure out what I want to do. And then four days into living in Turkey with this family I had never met before, That’s when Bella Hadid’s stylist DMed me. And then all of that happens at once. And all of that ego just made me realize I can just keep trying harder and I shouldn’t give up. But eventually all of that wore off and I was like, I still need health care. Yeah. You know, like reality sets in. I have a side job serving pizza. Like it’s not really that big of a deal to like being good at the things you love either, you know? And I work with a lot of people who I guess are what you would call “up and coming artists,” dancers or stuff like that. They’ll make comments, “Oh, you’re doing so well,” but to me it’s just like, we’re still both working here. You know, I can’t quit my job because someone wore my necklace.
Q: What is your favorite material to work with?
A: I started strong with gemstones. I collected so many, I have hundreds of gemstones. So right now I’ve been using the gemstones. But I love fur, too. I love leather. I wish I knew how to woodwork. I would love to get into woodworking. I studied fashion in school too. So I used to be really into textiles and embellishments. Anything sparkly really gets me going. Yeah, furry, fuzzy.
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Q: Do you do custom pieces for people?
A: Yeah, people will hit me up. I definitely take it. I don’t really market myself as a custom piece maker. Yeah, I definitely do it. I am not the best at marketing and I am one woman show right now.
Q: How did you learn to be a metalsmith?
A: I went to Virginia Commonwealth University. I’m from Virginia. Part of their art school is called Crafts.Kind of like sculptures, you make objects, it’s material based. So it was segmented into wood ceramics, metals, fibers and glass. Pretty rare for art schools, I think. So yeah, that’s how I got into jewelry. But it wasn’t very fashion oriented.It was more about sentimental objects for galleries.Figuring out how to branch into fashion was definitely something I had to do without the guidance of school. But it wasn’t that hard with the internet, I would say.
Q: What has your career path been like?
A: I remember when I was in school we would do craft markets with my class. And they would price things for like way lower than I wanted it to be priced at. And like, I realized, when I started out the way you price things will create that sensation of community. Especially because I started on Twitter, which is kind of nice, too because it’s not an image based platform. It’s more of a thought based platform. So when I first started, I was actually inspired by seeing someone else I didn’t even know at that time selling his jewelry on Twitter. And I had like a burner account to look at fashion and stuff. I was just kind of like this guy, you know, he doesn’t really have expertise, but he’s rallying people with memes and talking about culture. People are respecting these pieces of work that he’s making, beyond just the craftsmanship that I’m seeing, they are buying into his attitudes toward life. And I was like, I can do this. I started doing it and it just wasn’t even that hard.
Q: What is your relationship with your followers?
A: I would call my following a cult following. The response I get when some celebrity wears my work is like, “Oh my god that’s Shana Cave from Twitter!” They followed me from my birth. It’s really cute, actually. I think it also makes them feel more special in terms of their ability to discern taste because they knew about my work prior to the trendiness that it’s gotten. A lot of my customers are returning or repeating customers. A lot of people tell me they’ve been following me for years and they finally bought something which means more than a flippant buy from celebrity exposure. That’s kind of also why I’m not super outspoken about all of my features I’ve gotten. Just because I know that the people buying my work aren’t people coming to my page because of these features. Like they care, they’re already following me. I kind of cringe sometimes when people are very obsessed with that stuff.
Q: What materials do you use?
A: For the ice cream ring that one is lost wax cast. Most of my pieces were born when I was living at home. They’re pretty much made out of flat sheet tubes, square wire or round wire and I could only use those materials when I was at home during COVID. I was beginning to design these flowers. And so the flowers were more of a reaction to the materials. I was like, this kind of looks like a flower, then the wire can be a stem and from that it was the flower. Everything’s fabricated because I just like the challenge of soldering.
Tom Yazzie metalsmiths modern designs with a traditional theme. He was born and raised in Arizona where he grew up on a Navajo reservation. He eventually moved to Flagstaff, Arizona to attend Northern Arizona University, where he had a long journey towards discovering his passion in metal.
Tom writes:
“I am of the Bitter Water clan born for the Water Edge, my maternal grandparents are Towering House and my paternal grandparents are Red House. I received my Bachelors of Arts in Music with an emphasis in Classical Guitar Performance from Northern Arizona University in 2000.I continued working at NAU then decided to recommence my education and began taking classes for my second degree. I received my second Bachelors in Fine Arts with an emphasis on Metalsmithing in spring of 2012. I am now completing another degree in Fine Arts with an Emphasis in Sculpture.”
Q: What was your journey towards discovering your passion in metalsmithing?
A: Well, it started back in 2007. I started taking classes at Northern Arizona University for my second degree. I originally started at Northern Arizona University in 1994, where I was going to get my mechanical engineering degree. But I started taking music classes, because I was heavily into music and all that. Then a few semesters in my advisor tells me, Hey, you have more music classes than you do engineering classes. Then they recommend that I change my degree. And so I switched degrees and I went to music, and I got my bachelors of arts and music with emphasis on classical guitar performance. And I stayed at Northern Arizona University and then decided to recommence my engineering degree. So I went back in again, to start my engineering degree. And then of course, you have to take electives. And so I started taking jewelry classes as electives in 2007. And then again a couple of semesters in I was taking more jewelry classes than I was engineering courses. I thought, “Okay, great. I’ll just change my major.” So I changed my major. And I went into jewelry and metalsmithing. And then in 2012, I got my Bachelor’s of fine arts and jewelry and metalsmithing. And then from there, I just started making jewelry. Little bit here, a little bit there. But then more recently, I took it on all full time now. That’s what I’m doing now.
Q: What is the symbolic value to some of the materials you use?
A: In general, I think turquoise in my culture is coveted, especially in the southwest area of the indigenous peoples of this area. Turquoise was used for trading. So I definitely feel more gravitated towards the use of turquoise in a lot of my works. But with the metal smithing program that I went through at NAU, they teach you how to do all the lapidary as well, where we cut and polished all our own stones, and that just introduced me to every variety, color, and hardness of all the stones that you can get. So I typically go to the annual Tucson Gem and Mineral show where people from all over the world come and bring in their stones and stuff like that and I’ll buy them rough. I’ll buy opals from Australia, Welo opals, Afghan Lapis, and some of the turquoise from throughout the world, because the mine owners will show up there that show you buy directly from the people that own the mines, really, and it’s cheaper that we got and I just I just buy it by the pound. I’ll bring it back home here and I’ll cut them and slice them and polish it myself.
Q: What is your favorite part of making jewelry?
A: I think about taking something from an idea. And then physically fabricating it, putting it together, that process right there. Because sometimes when I have a mental image of something, and then I’ll fabricate it. But then at the end, I’ll step back and say, Wow, that looks really good. You know, it’s like, oh, man, that’s something you don’t want to part with. It’s a sense of pride and ownership.
Q: Where do you sell your work?
A: Well, I do only several shows a year. The Heritage Festival, the Native American Scottsdale festival. Just a few shows like that. I sell online directly on my online store (tymetalsmithing. com). I’m in a gallery here in Flagstaff called The Artist gallery. It’s a co-op downtown Flagstaff, I sell my stuff through them. Also, in Sedona there’s a place called Caravana Jewelry. They carry my work. And then in downtown Albuquerque, there’s a place called the Silver Artichoke. They also carry my work. And then on Navajo reservation there’s the Marco Arviso gallery. And they also carry my work.
Q: What is your advice to aspiring artists?
A: All the stones that are used in jewelry are just rocks. You would just pass it by if you’re hiking and wouldn’t even know it. So as well as your emeralds, your rubies, sapphires, diamonds - those are just crystals, again, just polished and shaped - to bring out the beauty. You know you as a person are kinda like this stone here. It’s really just a stone. But as you grow, you’re faceting that you’re polishing yourself and making it better. And every time you accomplish something you’ve put another facet in what you are becoming as a person. And then at the end, are you happy with what you become? Or do you still want to keep polishing and making yourself better every time? So yeah, never stop learning. Always, you know, picture yourself becoming the better version of yourself that you want to be every day.
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Emilia D’Antonio’s regenerative designs spark a conversation between invasive species and the future of art. Emilia encapsulates invasive species in resin and showcases them in her victorian-style hand beaded jewelry.
Q: Where did the idea to use bugs in your jewelry come from?
A: My friend applied to this farm program. One of the things that she had to do was take off this invasive beetle that was all over the plants. They’re Japanese beetles, but she came from just one week working at the farm with a whole bottle of all these Japanese beetles and other bugs. So she brought me the whole jar. And I was like, “Well, I guess I gotta figure out something to do with them.” Like it’s really fun. The bugs were a nice nice late birthday gift. I started researching casting bugs in resin. I would get a whole bunch of beads and like just some wire and see what I could make. I wanted to make elegant, flashy statement jewelry.
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Q: How long, on average, does it take you to make each piece?
A: With actually casting the bugs, it depends on the temperature. When it’s hotter outside it cures faster so I can pour the resin and then have it ready to start sanding the next day, but it takes longer when it’s colder. I also empty out the spotted lantern fly traps in the parks near my house. I really liked the idea of using invasive species because if you have to kill them anyway - there’s all their dead corpses nobody’s doing anything with. It was really cool because in the traps now I got a bunch of spotted lantern flies but there were also other different types of bugs that got stuck in there as well. So I have so many more to work with. Then the sanding process. It will take me like an hour or two and get through like 15-16 of the beetles. I have a clear gloss spray that I sprayed on after, I have to wait a bit for that to dry in between. So the pieces take a while, I would say eight to ten hours.
Q: What aesthetic inspires your work?
A: I like looking at older Victorian type jewelry pieces, also some North African jewelry is really cool too. I also like museums, artifact type jewelry. I like going to estate sales too. You know, like someone’s grandma died and you can buy her jewelry. It’s cool. Older jewelry, that’s my inspiration.
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Q: How do you source the rest of your materials?
A: For the most part I’ve been going into flea markets and getting old necklaces. For the tiny beads, I have been getting them from Michaels, but a whole bunch of pearls from the dollar store too. Most of the bead stuff is from older necklaces, or ones that I get at thrift stores.
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Q: What do you like about sourcing from the flea market?
A: There’s so much old jewelry to take apart and it’s really cheap.
It’s also more affordable for me. It’s regenerative fashion because I’m taking older jewelry and then making it something new. It’s the same kind of concept with using invasive species. It’s not just sustainable. It’s regenerative.
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T’s against-the-grain jewelry proves you can make beautiful jewelry without a traditional or technical approach. Their pieces are inspired by abstract fluidity, and made without many tools. T finishes their pieces using a process called oxidation, where the silver is put in chemicals to change the color over time. This creates a darkened or grayish finish to the piece. Oxidation is a way to create depth and accentuate the angles or finish of the silver for a grungy metallic finish. You can find their pieces on @tjulls on instagram.
Q: Where are you from, and how did you start making jewelry?
A: I grew up in Hong Kong. But I would say that I don’t really know. I kind of say I’m from Hong Kong and London because I grew up in Hong Kong until I was like, 11. Before moving to New York, I was in London.
Q: What got you into making jewelry?
A: So my parents also make jewelry. They started taking classes, and then they were making very technically correct jewelry. And I kind of fiddled with their tools. And I was like, Wait, I don’t have to follow all the rules of this.
Q: How long have you been selling pieces?
A: I’ve been selling pieces for, like, less than a year. But I made my first piece when I was like 14, which I still wear every day, my finger is like indented from wearing it.
Q: How long do your pieces take to make, and do you do custom designs?
A: I do. So I’m actually working on a collection right now for the first time because it became kind of time consuming to do the customs. Yeah, but I’ve only ever worked doing custom work. In terms of time, it depends on the piece for like, how much or how long it takes to make. But the pieces that I’m more happy with take like an absurd amount of time, which is why I’m trying to move away from customs. They can take eight hours to carve, and then there’s time you have to spend waiting for it to back from casting. And then I probably spend like an hour and a half on just finishing it.
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Q: What is important about design to you?
A: I feel like I try to veer away from like, very, like technical jewelry. And I think a big part of that is that, actually until I bought some stuff over the break, but until then, I had like three tools.
And it was just stuff that I bought from or stole from my parents. And I was just like, this is working. So I didn’t really need to get anything else. But because of that I wasn’t able to make super technical pieces. So I think describing my work is similar to my photography. I kind of focus on elements like fluidity and abstraction. And then it's very DIY.
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Beautiful set stones highlight the natural theme of Sarah Birkebak’s jewelry. Often, Sarah incorporates stones she finds on hikes into pieces that she hand cuts and polishes. She sells her work on her Etsy page, RainShadow Jewelry.
Q: Where did you grow up? When did you become interested in art and design?
A: I grew up in New Hampshire and spent a lot of time growing up outside hiking and camping. I was almost always collecting rocks and shells and driftwood, like on any hike. For the past nine years I have been living out here in the Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest. And so I just carried that love of the outdoors, I think, from my growing up in New Hampshire. In terms of incorporating that in my jewelry, I really love finding local rocks and local materials and incorporating them in my work and then love trying to capture the same textures and colors in allI see when I’m out hiking in the mountains. Jewelry is what I do on the side right now. I have a full time job as a social worker as a nine to five, then I do jewelry on evenings and weekends. And any other time I can fit it in.
Q: When did you know jewelry was a passion?
A: It was pretty early on. A lot of folks in my family are relatively creative. So I was kind of surrounded by that growing up, but my grandpa was a painter. My mom is a florist and she does a lot of things like arrangements and wreath making and that kind of stuff. So I’ve definitely been surrounded by it and loved art since I was a kid, like anything creative. I absolutely loved doing it. I thought about going to school for art, and ultimately didn’t. And I don’t know if I fully regret that or not. But it’s been something that I’ve wanted to keep as part of my life.
Q: Where did you grow up? When did you become interested in art and design?
A: I grew up in New Hampshire and spent a lot of time growing up outside hiking and camping. I was almost always collecting rocks and shells and driftwood, like on any hike. For the past nine years I have been living out here in the Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest. And so I just carried that love of the outdoors, I think, from my growing up in New Hampshire. In terms of incorporating that in my jewelry, I really love finding local rocks and local materials and incorporating them in my work and then love trying to capture the same textures and colors in allI see when I’m out hiking in the mountains. Jewelry is what I do on the side right now. I have a full time job as a social worker as a nine to five, then I do jewelry on evenings and weekends. And any other time I can fit it in.
Q: When did you know jewelry was a passion?
A: It was pretty early on. A lot of folks in my family are relatively creative. So I was kind of surrounded by that growing up, but my grandpa was a painter. My mom is a florist and she does a lot of things like arrangements and wreath making and that kind of stuff. So I’ve definitely been surrounded by it and loved art since I was a kid, like anything creative. I absolutely loved doing it. I thought about going to school for art, and ultimately didn’t. And I don’t know if I fully regret that or not. But it’s been something that I’ve wanted to keep as part of my life.
Q: How do you source your materials?
A: There are a couple of interesting rock shops and like a small side of the road “world” - folks who just have been rockhoarding for years and post up and are selling their raw materials. So I love stopping by there and just seeing what folks have gathered. Some folks have more permanent spots, that’s what they do. And they have a bunch of buckets out in their yard and a hand painted sign up front. I’ve almost caused a couple car accidents pulling over. A lot of them will have buckets of water to rinse the rough rocks in to see what the colors will ultimately end up as but it’s so fun. You get to be really hands on in the process.
Q: What is the lapidary process like?
A: It’s actually way more straightforward and accessible than I thought it would be. It always seemed like this holy grail of jewelry. But I got a rock saw that you can cut slabs from whatever rocks or raw materials you’re working with. And then there’s a cabbing machine that has multiple wheels of coarser to lighter sanding. And so you just kind of move your way along until you’ve polished everything up. But I think my favorite part is figuring out at which angle you want to cut the rock, and which piece do you kind of want to highlight and have at the forefront.
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A poet herself, Paige Taggart’s largest audience of her jewelry is her fellow poets. Her jewelry is composed of metals, beads, and stones. Paige’s life and interests reflect in her contemporary yet quaint approach to design. Her art is available to purchase on her website: mactaggartjewelry.com.
Q: How did you get into jewelry making?
A: When I was just really little, my friend introduced me to beadmaking. We met in third grade and she had lived in San Francisco. She was a little bit more cultured and hip, and I grew up in a small town called Healdsburg. It’s an hour and a half north of San Francisco. So we would just start making little beaded bracelets and beaded necklaces. My mom is a painter and everyone in my family is artistic in some way. My dad had his own business that would supply guitar builders with wood. He was big in the wood industry. And they use a lot of shell and I still get some of my shell from people who he knows even though he’s retired now. Slowly I started making jewelry with more variety in my materials like semi precious stones and glass beads. I would bike downtown into this store and get little beads and stuff. Then it became, “Oh, Mom, you have to drive me to this town 30 minutes away where I can get real stones.” So slowly, I started getting more into it in high school. We had a yearbook and I got “most likely to have her own jewelry business.” But at the time, I scoffed, because I just considered it a hobby, that wasn’t really going to be what I did, you know. And then I went to UC Santa Cruz for one year, but I really didn’t like it. And I wanted to. But it was very isolated, it was like up in the mountains. So I was already from a small town and then I went to this isolated campus, and I felt really claustrophobic about it and I ended up dropping out of Santa Cruz and then I was just like, I’m gonna live in San Francisco and go to City College and try to figure it out. So I moved to San Francisco and then I like, worked a bunch of different jobs and took classes at the same time I worked at Urban Outfitters and coffee shops and things like that.The junior college they had this really good study abroad program. So I I went to Paris for a semester and I got really into art there. All the jewelry in Renaissance paintings inspired me. So I started making like, kind of more over the top pieces with wire, beads, and structural collars and Renaissance-y looking stuff. I went back home, and I was gonna go study history originally. I think it was like two weeks before school was supposed to start. I withdrew and applied to art school instead. I just ended up graduating with the visual studies and an art history degree. So I ended up doing a lot more art history classes and like, lots of writing classes. And that’s how I got into poetry. And that’s why I moved to New York to get my MFA in poetry. I used to go to all these stores in New York that supply jewelers, but they all closed down in the pandemic. I already had been a hoarder of supplies. So I wasn’t always in need of something. But it’s fun. It’s fun, and I missed it because a lot of times people want me to do some one- off kind of project.
Q: What do you enjoy about doing custom pieces?
A:I feel like it aligns with me, I’ll do it. Sometimes it’ll be something very bizarre. And I’m like, I don’t know, I don’t think I can do that right now. But a lot of times, it won’t be jewelry. It could be making a hairpiece for someone’s wedding or, like my cousin’s gonna get married, and she wants me to make slightly different variations of earrings for her bridesmaids, you know? So I do custom projects as well, if I can visualize someone else’s idea.
Q: How has living in NYC shaped your career as a jeweler?
A: When I moved here in 2006, I lived in Williamsburg on Bedford Ave. One day I was walking by this warehouse studio space and this guy was selling all these metal components and jewelry supplies that were super vintage, in front of his studio space. So I bought a bunch of shit and was talking to him. And he was like, “Oh, do you want to be my assistant?” And I said yes. So I ended up being this guy’s assistant. He made this colorful glass jewelry. Every year, he’d make basically all of his money during the Union Square Christmas market. Sometimes I tried to find out what happened to him, but I don’t know.
Q: What was working with him like?
A: He’d lay out patterns of how he wanted the stones to be and then I would set them all and then. And then it would just be like all sorts of busy work tasks. I liked it. And we listened to all these British podcasts and radio. Because of him I became into all sorts of British radio shows and television. I worked for him for four years. He got kicked out of the space because they wanted to jack up the rent and turn it into this furniture place. So he moved all his stuff into a storage unit where he would sometimes work. But then he would bike and meet me and he’d give me all this stuff. And then I’d take it home and I’d do all these tasks at home. And then I bike and meet him somewhere else. And I hand over all this stuff. He’d always want to go in and get fish and chips. I would bike and he’d bike and we’d get fish and chips together. The other thing that we would do together –we would drive to Providence, Rhode Island, and that’s where a lot of chain-mills used to be. And so you could buy wholesale supplies. So I started getting my own supplies there, too. I would get Czech glass beads. They’re all different colors and shapes. Providence was the biggest importer of Czech glass.. So I would buy this stuff wholesale.
Q:How has your style grown and changed in your career?
A: I was looking at all these old pictures of my work on my old phone. And I was like, “Oh my god, I would never make that now.” But it’s also cool. I don’t make everything for myself all the time. I have a style that I want to wear. And I have my own collection of jewelry that I make. But then I also make sure that I make things other people would wear that maybe I wouldn’t wear.
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Q: How do you normally work?
A: I have to stand when I do everything. Sitting for me is way worse and like, I don’t even like to really sit that much in bed. I only work when it’s messy. If everything’s clean and put away then I’m usually taking a jewelry break.
Q: What is your favorite part or step in designing jewelry?
A: I go through phases. For a while I’d be really into making spirals and I just wanted to make them all the time. And a lot of times it’d be like, I need to hammer shit or sometimes I’m in a phase where I really want to make something super bright and colorful. So then usually I turn to working with beads. A lot of it is about balancing soft and rough elements and the different weights of things.
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