Welcome to My Website!
Portrait by Amanda Kishel, Kishel Photography, Muncie
If you live in the Muncie area, you are welcome to call and visit my bedroom-turned-studio at 2200 Sun Valley Parkway. Call 765-717-4291 or 765-288-3542 to set up an appointment. You can also see and purchase my work at these galleries: Gordy's Fine Art and Framing in Muncie; the Paradigm Gallery of the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art and my most recent, the Indiana Artisan store at the French Lick Resort.
Artist Biography...In a Few Words
I am an Indiana Artisan and three-time Indiana Arts Commission grant recipient. I incorporate traditional metalworking techniques such as silver casting, chase repousse, and etching into my signature pendants, bracelets and earrings.
Artist Biography...the Unabridged Version
2/17: My artisan biography is unique because being a metalsmith/jewelry designer is my third career. My first career as an elementary school teacher began in Athens, Ohio where I attended college. As my husband and our family moved for his various employment opportunities in Ohio, California, and West Virginia, I found jobs in public education in a variety of teaching capacities (Kindergarten, Head Start, Gifted, Learning Disabilities, 4th and 5th grade)
My next career, that of art educator, was a surprising change for one who had taken no high school art classes. In my mid-thirties, while taking certification classes in California, I enrolled in two art classes: botanical illustration and the history of modern art. These classes fed my soul; they kindled my latent talent and pointed me in an entirely new direction. After we moved to West Virginia, I pursued my passion: I taught Head Start in the morning and took art classes at West Virginia University in the afternoon and evenings. My skills and confidence grew over the next five years with each new class I took. When we moved to Muncie in 1991, I had accumulated enough credits and technical skill to be admitted into the Masters of Art Program at Ball State University (with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking). In my second career, I combined teaching with my newfound love of art. After several years of teaching art education at Ball State, I moved back into the public schools – first teaching art at the elementary level and then at the high school level in the Marion Community Schools.
Who could imagine that an assignment to teach a high school jewelry class would blossom into a retirement career? At that time in 2006, I was teaching a variety of art classes at Marion High School and inherited the jewelry class when the department head retired. I was terrified because I had minimal experience in jewelry and was replacing a 35 year veteran teacher whose students won awards for their work. That year, I was often one day ahead of my students. For example, I taught myself to solder one day and then taught the same skill to my students the next day! I found that as I learned along with them, I developed a deep affinity for the medium of jewelry. It synthesized distinct strands of my life in a way that neither painting nor printmaking had. Previously, I expressed my lifelong love affair with nature in landscape paintings or prints, but now I could express it in metals and stones. I also found that metalsmithing/jewelry design better satisfied my need for hands-on problem solving.
A pink slip was the other impetus for a career change. In 2008, the art department of four became a department of three and being the one with the least seniority, I lost my job. After the usual anger and tears, I decided to look at the situation as an opportunity to retire and do something new. When the school shut down their jewelry studio, I bought much of the equipment at auction and transformed my home painting and printmaking studio into a metals studio. My retirement career as a metalsmith/jewelry designer had begun!
Over the last eight years, I’ve continued to hone my design and technical skills as I produce one-of-a-kind pieces under the Sun Valley Studio name. To continue my education, I’ve taken numerous jewelry workshops at Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. As a recipient of three Individual Artist Project Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission, I received awards of $2,000 to purchase the equipment and supplies necessary to learn bracelet making, silver casting and chase repousse. For my current grant project of chase repousse, I am working with a mentor, Pat Nelson, Professor Emeritus of Metals at Ball State. I have also exhibited in numerous regional shows, won awards for my work, and been recognized as an Indiana Artisan since 2012.
Looking over my life, I can see that I’ve been led each step of the way to become the artist I am today. I look upon my retirement as the opportunity to be first and foremost an artist, a luxury that was impossible in my first two careers.
My next career, that of art educator, was a surprising change for one who had taken no high school art classes. In my mid-thirties, while taking certification classes in California, I enrolled in two art classes: botanical illustration and the history of modern art. These classes fed my soul; they kindled my latent talent and pointed me in an entirely new direction. After we moved to West Virginia, I pursued my passion: I taught Head Start in the morning and took art classes at West Virginia University in the afternoon and evenings. My skills and confidence grew over the next five years with each new class I took. When we moved to Muncie in 1991, I had accumulated enough credits and technical skill to be admitted into the Masters of Art Program at Ball State University (with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking). In my second career, I combined teaching with my newfound love of art. After several years of teaching art education at Ball State, I moved back into the public schools – first teaching art at the elementary level and then at the high school level in the Marion Community Schools.
Who could imagine that an assignment to teach a high school jewelry class would blossom into a retirement career? At that time in 2006, I was teaching a variety of art classes at Marion High School and inherited the jewelry class when the department head retired. I was terrified because I had minimal experience in jewelry and was replacing a 35 year veteran teacher whose students won awards for their work. That year, I was often one day ahead of my students. For example, I taught myself to solder one day and then taught the same skill to my students the next day! I found that as I learned along with them, I developed a deep affinity for the medium of jewelry. It synthesized distinct strands of my life in a way that neither painting nor printmaking had. Previously, I expressed my lifelong love affair with nature in landscape paintings or prints, but now I could express it in metals and stones. I also found that metalsmithing/jewelry design better satisfied my need for hands-on problem solving.
A pink slip was the other impetus for a career change. In 2008, the art department of four became a department of three and being the one with the least seniority, I lost my job. After the usual anger and tears, I decided to look at the situation as an opportunity to retire and do something new. When the school shut down their jewelry studio, I bought much of the equipment at auction and transformed my home painting and printmaking studio into a metals studio. My retirement career as a metalsmith/jewelry designer had begun!
Over the last eight years, I’ve continued to hone my design and technical skills as I produce one-of-a-kind pieces under the Sun Valley Studio name. To continue my education, I’ve taken numerous jewelry workshops at Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. As a recipient of three Individual Artist Project Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission, I received awards of $2,000 to purchase the equipment and supplies necessary to learn bracelet making, silver casting and chase repousse. For my current grant project of chase repousse, I am working with a mentor, Pat Nelson, Professor Emeritus of Metals at Ball State. I have also exhibited in numerous regional shows, won awards for my work, and been recognized as an Indiana Artisan since 2012.
Looking over my life, I can see that I’ve been led each step of the way to become the artist I am today. I look upon my retirement as the opportunity to be first and foremost an artist, a luxury that was impossible in my first two careers.
In April, 2014 Star Press feature writer, John Carlson, and press photographer, Kurt Hostetler visited my studio. I was thrilled with the feature article in this morning's paper. John's writing and Kurt's photos told my story better than I ever could myself. The slide show below is made from Kurt's photos. Click here for the article.