A lot of artists obtain inspiration in character, painting flowers, trees, and other natural features as they show up to the bare eye. Jeweler and sculptor Elysha Roberts, on the other hand, tends to just take the micro watch — obtaining elegance in the very small things that others typically forget or, occasionally, matters that are invisible with no the aid of magnification.
“I like to play with scale,” she states. “A ton of my types are centered on cell formations or growth styles in character — matters that mostly go unnoticed. I like bringing these minute information into scale so that the viewer can see them.”
Roberts’ contemporary jewelry can be found on her website, elyshajoymetals.com, and at the Workshop Gallery in Winery Haven. Her on the web retail outlet is divided into classes this sort of as land, sea, and microcosmos. The land styles include things like a series of necklaces and earrings in a sample she phone calls “Ipomoea” — the Latin word for the genus that includes morning glories. For these items, as with all of her do the job, Roberts works by using various elements and employs various painstakingly specific procedures.
She begins with handmade paper, which she makes and dyes herself, formed more than a steel screen. She then hand-sews small bits of thread to emulate the ridges on the bouquets. She in some cases provides very small, hand-sculpted silver twigs topped with gemstones. Though not meant as an specific replica of a flower, the a single-of-a-sort items absolutely carry to intellect the organic and natural elements they were influenced by, as well as other sorts in nature. “My designs are taken from a range of points that mimic each and every other in mother nature that combine to convey to a story,” she says.
For case in point, her fish fin earrings could also be witnessed as representing leaves or bat wings. Her barnacle necklace to some degree resembles a crater-encrusted moon. The latter is designed by a meticulous procedure involving copper and glass enamel.
A person of her most common designs is centered on cell composition. Light-weight polymer clay earrings in a range of hues had been influenced by research that the artist executed all through her mother’s bout with breast most cancers.
Roberts genuinely enjoys combining a variety of processes and resources in her patterns. “It’s pleasurable to be ready to use my abilities in a wide variety of distinctive methods,” she claims. “I operate incredibly experimentally. I really like participating in with a selection of elements and discovered objects. I’m as pushed by approach as I am inspired by nature.” The jeweler and artist teaches a wide variety of courses at Featherstone, and performs aspect-time as a bench jeweler at CB Stark. She also makes engagement and marriage ceremony rings on commission.
Born and raised on the Island, Roberts earned a bachelors of fantastic arts 3D/jewellery and metalsmithing from the Massachusetts Faculty of Art and Design in 2011. From there she went on to full a residency with the Rochester Institute of Technology’s College for American Crafts. Despite the fact that she enjoys jewelrymaking, her real enthusiasm is for building huge-scale sculptural parts. Roberts is 1 of four artists who share studio and show space at the Workshop Gallery on Seaside Highway in Winery Haven. There she demonstrates her wall and ceiling-mounted sculptures, which, like her jewelry, draw from organic types. Roberts has gained a lot of awards for her sculptural pieces, as very well as for some of her greater, assertion jewellery layouts. In 2019 her get the job done was provided in an international traveling clearly show that toured during Europe.
Some recurring photos in her sculptural function are spheres encased in wire mesh and podlike structures that are reminiscent of egg conditions or seed pods. These identical form of pictures reoccur, in smaller scale, in her jewellery. Roberts retains her models intentionally vague. In her artists’ statement she writes, “My do the job conveys ambiguity in type, substance, and expertise because although absolutely nothing is implicit, it continues to be inherently acquainted. By embracing styles, textures, and sorts drawn from individual collections, microphotography, and organic experiments, I develop the obscure though emulating the acquainted. My perform celebrates both of those the adorned and the viewers’ person experiences, allowing for them to acquire intimate perspectives to the perform or take pleasure in its beauty in a passing moment.”
Roberts has two Instagram accounts — just one showcasing her jewellery and sculptural models, the other devoted to pictures of points she finds in the course of walks around the Island. “I’m usually amassing items,” she states. “Bits of coral, sea pods, or shells, bark, and lichen. I have normally liked biology and currently being in mother nature and exploring close to the Island. There is so a lot right here to be encouraged by.”
Obtain Elysha Roberts jewelry styles at elyshajoymetals.com or on Instagram, @elyshajoymetals. She sells just one-of-a-kind pieces and does fee operate, which includes engagement and wedding rings. Roberts is also a member of the Workshop Gallery at 32 Seaside Highway, Winery Haven. You can look at her get the job done there in human being by appointment.
