Archive for July 3rd, 2006
Woman finds her passion in jewelry making
WKYT, KY
OWENSBORO, Ky. — Paula Canant doesn’t just make jewelry. Canant makes beads, then uses them to make jewelry.
The former nurse makes glass or lampwork beads in the basement art studio at her Owensboro home.
“I let the glass do the work. I work below the flame,” said Canat while wearing the special glasses that allow her to see in the white-hot glare of her torch.
Fueled by propane and oxygen, the torch reaches temperatures as high as 2,200 degrees.She melts colored glass rods with the torch until they are “nice and hot and molten,” then builds the glass beads around steel welding rods coated with a substance similar to bisque.
Her basement is equipped with a special ventilation system and a bead kiln that begins the cooling process at 900 degrees.
“I cool it at a slow rate to ensure strength and durability,” Canant said.
Her three daughters advise her on color and design and watch her work, but they know not to sit directly in front of her torch or to ever touch anything on her workbench, she said.
“It may look cool, but it is still hot,” Canant said. “I’ve been burned many, many times because I have no patience.”
Canant, 42, is a native of Lebanon, Ky. She was a medic in the Air Force, but “the outside world wouldn’t let me do the things I did in the military.”
She became a travel agent, then a homemaker. Her husband, Kenneth, is an emergency room doctor.
Inspired by the cathedrals she saw while stationed in Spain, Canant took up working on stained glass about seven years ago.
Then she saw a lampwork demonstration at a shop in Louisville and was drawn to the idea of creating something so beautiful so quickly.
Three years into her new craft, Canant is getting some attention, her work can sell for upward of several hundred dollars.
She works full-time at it, but “it’s a job that doesn’t feel like a job,” Canant said.
Marguerite Esrock, director of the St. James Court Art Show in Louisville, came upon Canant’s work at a state program to promote Kentucky artists.
“She puts together really interesting and different elements in her jewelry,” Esrock said. “Her combinations are just real fresh and energetic.”
Canant has jewelry on display at Gallery 412, Brinker’s Jewelers and the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art, where she recently taught bead-making workshops for children. Her work is for sale in galleries as far away as San Clemente, Calif. Kentucky First Lady Glenna Fletcher even owns some of her jewelry.
This is Canant’s first year to do juried craft shows, though. Her work will be for sale in a section of the St. James Court show in October.
Operated by five neighborhood associations and a Louisville church, the annual event is several juried shows in one. The event usually showcases the work of about 700 artists to an estimated 275,000 shoppers.
“She’s going to do great here,” Esrock said.
Canant adds her beads to little seashells, silver and macrame in wax linen and pearl cotton, “everything but the kitchen sink,” as she describes it, to create chunky and colorful jewelry.
Along with necklaces and bracelets, Canant makes earrings, cell-phone charms, canape knives and what her family calls “whoodoos,” flat beads worn as pins, decorated with funny faces and wild hair made of ribbon and other fibers.
“I used to make jewelry I thought everyone else would like,” Canant said. “Now I please me.”
After three years, Canant says she still has a lot to learn about the process.
“You can take a thousand classes. It doesn’t matter. When you are comfortable with glass, it’s practice,” she said. “It’s probably been the best therapy I’ve ever had in my whole life. “I’ve dabbled in just about everything artistically. This is my true love right here.”
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
July 3rd, 2006
Troll’s Jewelry downtown fixture for 3 generations
Salem News, Ohio
By ELIZABETH EWING/Salem News staff writer
SALEM - There are not many downtown businesses that can say they have served three generations of customers, but Jackie Troll of Troll’s Jewelry, 581 E. State St., is proud to count her store as one of that number.
Troll’s Jewelry got its beginning in 1934 when Jackie’s father, Foster “Heck” Troll, had trouble finding work during the Depression and fell back on the training an uncle had given him in watch and clock repair.
He opened the original store, also located on State Street, two doors east of the present location. Over the years, that was the only move Troll’s Jewelry made, just down the block to a bigger location.
While the site of the store hasn’t changed much, their offerings have always had to shift with the times, Jackie explained. Her father added china, sterling and silver flatware, and jewelry to his repair services, but the specifics of those selections has shifted with the times.
Jackie recalled that before she really got involved in the business end of the store, in the 1940s and 50s, yellow gold jewelry was extremely popular, but since then white gold and platinum, as well as silver, have become more popular.
She added that the store sells more jewelry overall now than in the past. “We used to sell a lot of china, sterling, and silver flatware, but people live more casually now. There’s less of a market for that,” she said.
Not only has Jackie witnessed change in her own business, she has seen a transformation in the downtown area as a whole. “There’s certainly been a major change. There used to be three or four shoe stores, ladies ready-to-wear-stores… It has changed radically,” she remarked.
“One reason we survive is we try to give individual attention and sell quality,” she noted. Jackie sees this as a key to the jeweler’s viability. In addition, she said, the store has relied on dedicated employees, like long-time staff members Mindy Schwingle and Ruth Evans.
Another part of that focus on quality is Jackie’s membership in the American Gemological Society. Since 1977, she has passed a yearly exam to retain her certification, which demands a high level of knowledge as well as ethics and fair business practices. She attended the Gemological Institute of America and credits that education with part of her success.
Still involved in the day to day business, Jackie helps with the minor repairs done on the premises, doing appraisals, and setting up the window displays.
While other stores have come and gone, Troll’s is now serving the children and grandchildren of original customers. “We pride ourselves on that. It’s a very nice compliment to us. We try to give individual attention and help people find exactly what they want,” Jackie concluded.
Elizabeth Ewing can be reached at eewing@salemnews.net
July 3rd, 2006
Vincenzo Taormina : Contemporary Jewelry Designer and Metal Artist
Dexigner
The pleasure of creating something different, something that represents a special world, first imagined and then realized through a jewel, this was the bet of Vincenzo Taormina Contemporary Jewelry Designer and Metal Artist that has past great part of his artistic career between Italy and the United states, collecting the essence of trends and tendency of the world wide jewelry designs.
His career starts in the city of Palermo (Italy), where right after Art school and coursework in Architecture, he joined his family jewelry firm, learned the art of goldsmith and qualified as a Master Jeweler.
Years later he moved from Italy to the USA in quest of new styles and innovations.
Inspired by his European sense of fashion, his modern visions of the today’s market, combined with his youth experiences, Vincenzo Taormina in 2004 created his first Collections “Abbracci”, a versatile line of unisex jewelry, using unconventional materials and metals, like Stainless Steel combined with precious and semi-precious stones, totally handmade in his studio, located in Philadelphia.
Vincenzo Taormina Jewelry Collection are created by using old world techniques that reflect all of the inherited traditions of fine jeweler making.
Source:
www.fashiontrendsetter.com/content/accessorie… (26)
July 3rd, 2006
Costume jewelry set in different colors
Global Sources, Singapore
China (mainland) – Model CI0021 from Zhejiang Yiwu Fengzhen Arts & Crafts Co. Ltd is a colorful jewelry set that consists of a necklace and earrings.
The pieces are made of rhinestones and resin and acrylic beads. Metal parts, such as the necklace chain and earring hooks, are made of alloy. The necklace measures 16cm long, while the earrings are 11cm in length.
Buyers’ size, color and design specifications are accepted for large orders.
One set is packed in a plastic bag or a gift box.
Price is $7.88. The minimum order is five dozen sets. Delivery time is provided on direct inquiry.
Zhejiang Yiwu Fengzhen Arts & Crafts Co. Ltd
Fax : (86) 579-5215118
Phone : (86) 579-5215111
URL : www.fzjewelry.com
Contact Person : Yu lisha
July 3rd, 2006
