I have been a metalsmith since taking my first workshop in 1975. I fell in love with the material, the processes and jewelry's intimate scale. It has been my major vocation for almost 40 years. I have taught classes, done major retail and wholesale craft fairs, been in numerous juried shows and managed my own craft gallery. I got my MFA in metals at SIUC many years after that first workshop. I now use my skills primarily as a metalsmith, fabricating my jewelry at my studio in Alabama. There I forge, form, file, saw, sand, solder, granulate, enamel, oxidize, patina... Now what have I left out. Oh yes, I get to play with fire and make loud noises. What is there not to love about being a metalsmith?
I love organic shapes and complex forms. Yet my art training insists there be a reason for each detail in the pieces. So my work can be both very simple and complex at the same time.
I specialize in unique hand fabricated jewelry. Many of my designs have so many variations and go off in so many directions that it never gets boring creating them. I may be making one of my older design and see new variations and possibilities and off I go in new major or minor directions. One very early piece was inspired by a really weird looking mushroom cap's surface. The pieces it inspired grew and evolved from very organic enamel brooches into a very simple geometric and clean design, visually far from the original inspiration, yet the fundamental idea I saw in the mushroom was still there.
With many of my jewelry designs, I test wear the original idea just to make sure it works as I intended. I often keep the original version of a new design's direction for myself because I can not bring myself to sell it. Therefore I have to make others for sale to make a living. This is one reason my work is often created in a series of very similar items. A jewelry idea may have so many design possibilities which I see as I create it, that I cannot make up my mind which one is the very best. Thus I end up making every possible variation. That then becomes a new “line” in my work.
Most of my jewelry is either one of a kind or very small limited “production” runs. When I told this to a friend that makes wonderful furniture, he said it made him think of me in a factory working a production line. One of my first jobs was as an inspector packer at a textile mill, and I can tell you my “production” is nothing like that. I sit at my bench and hand make several items in the series or the limited production run by doing the first step for each item in the series, then the 2nd step for each item and so forth until they are all done. This is more efficient than finding all the tools and materials and making each item individually all the way through. It also helps me see and implement variations at different steps in the process while keeping it still fairly efficient.
Being a perfectionist, my jewelry must be well made and functional. I use the best materials because I want my jewelry to last and be wearable for many years. I use primarily sterling silver, 14, 18 and 22 karat golds, 14K gold filled, vermeil, vitreous enamels, real pearls and semiprecious gemstones. When I use other materials I always list them under the description of the actual items.
I now have 2 shops on Etsy. CeliaOKelleyJewelry and CeliaOKelleyJewelry2.