Welcome to my blog! Four words I never thought I would say! I've been wrestling with the idea of starting a blog for few months and finally decided to go for it. I'm a twenty something graduate from art school with a teaching certificate attempting to figure out where I belong in the world. My passion is jewelry making but I also love ceramics and crocheting. Now that I've been out of school for a while I have had the opportunity to work a lot more on my art. And let me tell you I've been a jewelry making machine. When I first started designing jewelry I would almost exclusively make chainmaille pieces. I learned how to do it online through various tutorials and fell in love. The idea of making something so incredibly complex from materials as simple as a spool of wire and a pair of pliers was beautiful to me. I started out making simple chains with not much creativity to them. Once I started I couldn't stop. I had to learn every pattern. When I would exhaust the patterns on one website I would scour the internet for new weaves. Honestly it felt like I had looked at every website about chainmaille that had ever existed. I felt like I had seen it all. I was stuck. Until I realized maybe I could use the existing weaves that I had learned and modify them. Then a light bulb went off. I am an artist! I don't have to follow instructions to create something beautiful! I thought that I had been creating works of art but realized that I hadn't even found my own voice as an artist in this new medium. I struggled at first trying to come up with ways to make the chains more interesting until one day I took a trip to my favorite place, AC Moore. I was looking at some of the bicone crystals and thought, "maybe these could fit
inside the inverted round weave!" I immediately bought some, brought them home, and went to work. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out what size crystals would fit inside what diameter rings made from what gauge wire but I eventually figured it out. The end result made me so happy that I went on to make the same bracelet in every color crystal I could find.
This is the first one that I made. I thought the contrast between the deep red and the bright silver was very striking. Since then I don't think I've made a piece of jewelry with only one design element. At first I was really into using the crystals to add a feminine touch to an industrial look. However lately I've been using semiprecious stones for a more natural look. I think I almost like those pieces more. They have a more professional and polished look to them. I will post more pictures of them later and more of my works in progress in future posts. But for now that is all. Here is a link to my etsy shop if you would like to see more!
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