April Hale is a traditionally trained metalsmith who has been practicing her art for over ten years. Creating jewelry in her small studio in Bozeman, Montana, she derives her designs from forms and colors that she sees in the landscape. Because of her jewelry’s connection to the environment and her desire to create sustainable jewelry, all work is made from a minimum of 50% reclaimed materials. By using reclaimed steel or roofing copper as a base for colorful enamel, hand-forming earwires from recycled sterling silver, and forging steel baling wire into rings, bracelets, and components of necklaces and earrings, April creates jewelry that transforms everyday materials into expressive, finely crafted adornment.
When she is not working in the studio, April can usually be found wandering in the woods, either on foot or cross country skis, looking at birds and finding wonder in her surroundings.
“Flowers on Branches Necklace” by April Hale / forged steel, enameled copper, and sterling silver.April in her studio.Dangling Flower Earrings in Blue + Green by April Hale / sterling silver and enameled copperEnamel + Steel Linked Bracelet by April Hale / forged steel, enameled copper, and sterling silverFlower Post Earrings by April Hale / enamel + sterling silver
We are so happy to be carrying April’s line of bright + colorful jewelry! Check out our entire collection of her work here.
We are thrilled to welcome recent Philadelphia transplant, Ashley Gilreath to our roster of artists. Ashley graduated from East Caroline University in North Carolina with her BFA in metal design in 2010 and then went on to exhibit her work across the country, teach and hold various artist residencies, most recently at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee. Her multiple lines of beautifully sculpted jewelry are inspired by the “decay of memories, architecture, and heirloom objects”. We are really excited to carry a few of her lines of jewelry in the shop! Here is a look at each series of jewelry that we are carrying PLUS a statement by Ashley about each one. Enjoy!
Weathered + Broken Wood Series
Pieces within this series are inspired by broken and decaying wooden fences, barns, or farming equipment. I’m interested in the process through which these functional structures are built, utilized, and abandoned over time. I enjoy how splitting and water marks on the surface of the wood provides a visual timeline for the life of these crafted objects. – Ashley Gilreath
Water Castings
These earrings are made out of sterling and fine silver water castings. During the casting process the silver is poured into cold water and as it sinks it cools very quickly, and forms these little cups! Sometimes looking like nests, drops, or blobs, I save the best formed cups and fill them with colored glass! Enameling is a process that allows for fusing glass to metal, and it adds a wonderful reflective dimension to these earrings! – Ashley Gilreath
Inscription/Book Cover Series
This body of work explores the tradition of writing notes and inscriptions upon the inside covers of books, and how a confluence of stories and people come together to create these objects. The words of the characters, the choices of the author, the artists of the covers, the writers of the secret inscriptions, and the owner of the book all effect how an individual would interpret the personal messages. Through time, as the book passes from hand-to-hand, these stories continue a dialogue whose original intimacy has faded.
– Ashley Gilreath
Botanical Jewelry
The designs in this series are directly influenced and inspired by the gardens of my past, specifically the hydrangeas that my mother rooted from her childhood home in Louisiana and brought with her to North Carolina. This transplanting of roots from one place to another directly reflects the paths we follow in life, and how home is given new meaning through time.
These flowers are so delicate, their blooming so quick and fleeting, yet their impression on our senses endures. I attempted to merge those characteristics into a wearable object, so that one could wear a shadow of the blossom.
We are working on adding some new designs to our collection of necklaces by Julianna Swaney. We sent her along 4 new prototypes and she thought it would be fun to do a little giveaway with them on her blog. All you need to do is comment on her blog post between now and Sunday (August 25th) and she will pick 4 lucky winners. Good luck!
This month’s edition of “In the Studio” features the work of ceramic artist Julie Moon. Julie Moon is originally from Canada & worked in the garment district in Toronto before she began her career in the field of ceramics. She received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2010 and is now a resident artist at The Clay Studio right here in Philly. Julie creates incredible sculptures but also has a production line of ceramic jewelry & skulls that we carry here at Art Star. Julie was kind enough to give us a little glimpse into her everyday studio practice through photos. Enjoy!
A snapshot of Julie’s studio at The Clay Studio. Love seeing all the sculptures drying on the side there!
Julie slip casts all of her skulls from a mold. Here they are drying before they can go in the kiln.
Here are some flowers in progress. These will be made into jewelry or used as crowns on some of the skulls’ heads. The skulls with flower crowns always sell out first here at Art Star.
A bucket of glazes. The next step is glazing.
Here they are after they have been glaze fired. The final step will be to apply the decals to the skull heads.
I hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek. Here are some more pieces by Julie that we just added to the site!
Flower Stick Pins by Julie Moon, $40 each
Geometric Pendant Necklaces by Julie Moon, $80 eachButtercup Stud Earrings by Julie Moon $50
Art Star: What materials do you work with?
Devin McNutt: I make jewelry from vintage tin canisters, boxes and trays. I’ve been collecting these tins over the years by scouring flea markets, yard sales and antique stores. Most of them were manufactured during the mid 20th century in England and Holland and were used to package loose tea, cookies and candy. They now line the walls of my studio and serve as a colorful paint palette of sorts, from which I draw my inspiration.
AS: How are your items made? Describe your process.
DM: I start by breaking down a tin from it’s three dimensional form into flat sheets of metal. Then, based on the printed designs, I select an eye-catching portion, draw a shape to highlight it and cut it out. The edges of the tin are then carefully sanded and ground down to a smooth finish. Holes are drilled and the tin component is then used to create a unique piece of jewelry by riveting, wire wrapping or embellishing with beads and chain.
Devin at work in her studio
AS: Who are some of your favorite artists?
DM: One of my favorite artists is Alexander Calder. Better known for his famous sculptures and mobiles, Calder is, in my opinion, a wire jewelry genius. Every time I page through my 10 pound ‘Calder Jewelry’ book my brain is flooded with ideas and I can’t stop myself from running to my studio…
jewelry by Calder & Saffron Creations
AS: Are you able to make your work full-time? If not, what do you do for your day job? DM: I’ve managed a bead store for the past 6 years, where I teach classes, help customers design jewelry and do lots and lots of repairs. Recently, I made an exciting (yet scary!) change to reduce my hours at the shop to only one day a week. With my full focus on my business, I hope that Saffron Creations will really be able to blossom.
Earrings by Saffron Creations
AS: What types of items will you be selling at the bazaar?
DM: With my recent career change I have so much more time to do what I really love: make jewelry. This spring, I am excited to have my biggest inventory of work… ever! There is sure to be something for everyone.
Check out Saffron Creations in person at the May 11th & 12th Art Star Craft Bazaar. She’ll be at booth #70!
I met Penny back in the early 2000’s when I was working in the gallery at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia. She was a recent Alfred graduate who had studied both ceramics & glass, receiving her BFA in 2000. She was coming to Philly straight from an artist residency at Watershed, which provided her with studio space, a place to live, & covered basic expenses. She was looking to find a shared art community & studio space/time to continue to develop her ceramic & glass work. She volunteered in the gallery for me at The Clay Studio & also assisted our class studio technician in exchange for work space. Rakov states, “At the time, I was interested in making work that you live with. What I really loved about ceramics was how you interacted with it. I loved the simplicity of how something could just be beautiful & part of your daily life.” She worked on her pottery at The Clay Studio & also blew glass at Hot Soup (a glass studio/school in Philly) in exchange for teaching classes there.
ceramic cup by Penelope Rakov
Working in glass soon became too expensive & she felt her glass skills needed to develop further. According to Rakov, “At that point, I had never been as good in glass as I was in ceramics. So I applied to Tyler School of Art as a glass person w/ ceramic slides.” She was accepted in the glass department and paid for her tuition by teaching ceramic classes there. Her work at this time moved from being functional to more sculptural. She was only given 2 hours in the hot shop & the rest of the day she worked in her studio. She says, “I had not pulled cane [long strips of colored glass] before I got there. I loved color & I had intended on making functional glass objects in the same vain as making ceramic objects for the home. But it was just not as fun, or maybe I just was not as good at it. I also felt uncomfortable w/ all the judgment I was getting. When you blow glass, you fail a lot in public. Cane pulling wasn’t as hard for everybody & I could work w/ it. I could work w/ the scraps and build something out of it & make the color worth it. I could cut into it & fuze it back together & it could at least be interesting so [from there] I really just worked w/ pattern & color.”
She manipulated the pulled cane to create large color fields in a variety of forms. She states, “Color has a huge amount of information. If we look at red & green we think of Christmas; red and yellow -McDonalds. There are certain color combinations that have so much information, so I was thinking a lot about color combinations & what kind of information they conveyed. Conceptually I was thinking about things like lobster buoys, pharmaceuticals, etc. and how all those things are color coded so that they are instantly recognizable. I was playing w/ color combos & what I thought this combo would mean to me personally. So I made different fields of color, different forms of fields of color: some were flat, some were huge bundles, some were long troughs w/ scattered cane. Mostly what that was about for me was just having lots and lots of cane & being able to reassemble it and make something else out of it.” We asked if she was even thinking of making jewelry at the time. According to Penny, “I got requests for jewelry but I thought ‘how many crafts should I be making’. I was coming from an anti selling point at school & at the time, I bristled at the requests I got.”
Early Slice Necklace by Penelope Rakov
After graduating w/ her MFA, her thinking began to shift. In early 2004 we opened Art Star & Penny had recently finished up at Tyler & was beginning to sell her work. We consigned some small, brightly colored “pocket sculptures”, which were small circles of glass. Each piece was visually striking & unique. Each one was layered with circles & dots of different colored glass, some raised & bubbling from the surface. They were reminiscent of sea creatures or something you’d view under a microscope or find in a Petri dish. Customers were mesmerized by them & began to ask if the artist would make them into brooches or necklaces. We approached Penny about this & the seed for her soon to be small business, Spot On Designs, a production glass jewelry company, was planted. She recalls, “You said, ‘Penny, we’ll actually sell this & sell it for more money if you’d put a pin back on it.’ We watched as Penny’s glass pieces evolved from a chain passed through a hole in the glass sculpture to being professionally set in sterling silver. Today Spot On Designs creates not only necklaces, but also rings, earrings, & cuff links in a variety of styles, colors, patterns & settings. Because each piece is handmade, no two are alike.
Corey Dangle Earrings by Penelope Rakov
Penny’s studio is in the Crane building, an old plumbing warehouse that has been renovated to provide artist studio space & also houses the Icebox gallery space amongst others. Her walls & work tables are lined w/ hundreds of glass tubes in a vast array of colors. Her studio is where she starts to get creative with the glass canes that she has pulled & begins to play around w/ the colors to create patterns. She does this by bundling the glass strips together to see how they look. She says, “I will think of the colored canes that I’ve made & meditate on that, reacting to the stock that I have. I’ll mess around w/ the canes together & then bundle them. I’ll work w/ a specific color scheme that has been haunting me or that I think that I am missing from my collection or that I think will be popular with my customers”.
We were both amazed at how many steps were involved in the making of one piece (at least 7 steps) & were curious how she keeps her pricing so affordable. Penny reassured us that though it is a long, complicated process, she doesn’t make each piece one at a time. The canes that she pulls in the hot shop will be used for many finished pieces. She might not use them all right away, but she stores them in her studio until she can find a piece that they work w/. None of her materials are wasted. She states, “I couldn’t retail them for a price people couldn’t pay. If these prices get me to the next level [in my business] then it is okay – I can always raise them later. I love my customers, I really do & I want them to think that they bought something very special that will not disappoint them.” Plus, it will keep her customers coming back. Seeing her jewelry on a happy customer is her favorite part. She recalls,“There was this woman last year at Artstcape that purchased a piece that honestly, I didn’t like very much. Once she put it on I was like, that’s gorgeous!” This is when Penny feels her work is finally finished.
Penny Candy Necklace, glass & sterling silver
You can find Penny’s work in galleries & shops across the country. Visit her website for a complete list of shops that stock her work. Penny also does around 12 craft shows each year, including our own Art Star Craft Bazaar. And of course, you can find her work at Art Star year round!
Porcelain Skull by Julie Moon
A snapshot of Julie’s studio at The Clay Studio. Love seeing all the sculptures drying on the side there!
Julie slip casts all of her skulls from a mold. Here they are drying before they can go in the kiln.
Here are some flowers in progress. These will be made into jewelry or used as crowns on some of the skulls’ heads. The skulls with flower crowns always sell out first here at Art Star.
A bucket of glazes. The next step is glazing.
Here they are after they have been glaze fired. The final step will be to apply the decals to the skull heads.
