This month’s featured gallery is Artist Made Jewelry. Handcrafted jewelry is not only an expression of the artist who created it but of the one who wears it.  Whether created in silver or gold; plain or sparkling with gems and stones, artist made jewelry is a coming together of personalities that is unique. Throughout the remainder of March, we are going to take a few moments to catch up with some of EBSQ’s Jewelry artists.

So Jeo Katherine LeBlond

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Stars & Diamonds - So Jeo Katherine LeBlond

I love tiny intricate designs and challenging myself to work with the smallest and most fragile of eggs was just a natural progression for me.  The designs are drawn out and the egg goes through the same waxing and dyeing process as with a normal sized egg, just on a much, much smaller scale which requires special tools and a very light touch!

I work with shell cut-outs but also with tiny whole eggs such as parakeet, dove, cockatiel and finch. The most difficult to work with are the finch eggs which only measure about 3/4 of an inch tall.  Their paper thin shells are so fragile that they will often crumble into nothing as you are working on them.  Taking them to the point where they are wearable jewelry is a painstaking process; most don’t make it past the dyeing stage.  They then they need to be filled with a special polymer through the small pinhole where the contents were emptied out and after that many layers of the same polymer are applied on the outside giving them incredible strength, durability and UV resistance.

Often fragile collectibles such as Pysanky are kept in cabinets or glass domes, displayed but out of reach of the viewer.  Pysanky jewelry allows the wearer to have the closest proximity to something that most people only catch a glimpse of and knowing that the wearer thinks that my work is special enough to be worn and displayed on their person makes making egg shell jewelry such a rewarding process. – So Jeo Katherine LeBlond

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