Gypsy Stick Earrings

I love to ask other jewelry designers about exciting trends. Here's Sharilyn's take on the subject: "Exciting trends in wire jewelry: What I have observed from teaching at two bead shows this year is that wire in itself seems not nearly as popular as it once was. Perhaps I am dead-wrong about this; I hope so. What I have seen is lots of chainmaille, which is so boring, but I have not seen a lot of innovation in the area of wire jewelry in recent years. Everyone seems very interested in learning low-tech metalsmithing skills such as sawing out metal pieces and attaching them with wire links or wraps to make jewelry, or using resin with wire and pre-made bezel cups, or riveting, or capturing cabs in various ways, tube setting stones, enameling, dapping metal pieces, texturing sheet metal, soldering... these areas of interest are extremely popular right now, and the great thing is that you can learn all of these techniques through local colleges and parks & recreation departments in the larger towns and cities. So it's all out there and accessible to nearly everyone, which is terrific. But I love wire itself, and I continue to use it as an art material in pursuit of my own ideas."

Bead Connector

I asked what Sharilyn was working on in her private studio: "I have several ideas for new designs that I have not worked out yet, they are still percolating in my brain. I'm coming up with some interesting sketches, but I have found that sketching is quite different from making the object in wire, which is 3-dimensional. I'd like to do some riveting, but I don't want to do what has already been done before. I'm thinking of some new ways to rivet with wire, but don't ask to see anything just yet! I am also working with small pieces of sheet metal now but again, I want to do something entirely new and original. As soon as I see what others have done, my first thought is that I am "off the hook," I don't have to do that myself because it has already been done. My only interest in wire jewelry is in trying something new, trying to make something I've never seen before. This process takes much, much longer than simply copying another artist, which is a very sad trend I see in jewelry design in general. Everyone seems so focused on success, they don't want to even try making something out of their own heads; ask to see their sketchbooks of ideas, and they don't possess one! How sad."

Cage Bead Bracelet

"Art is all about expressing yourself, your own ideas, thoughts, dreams, whimsies. It's about making odd connections: for example, an Art Deco iron railing photographed in Prague can become the basis for a bracelet design that, in the end, bears no resemblance to the iron railing that sparked the idea. It becomes its own self, an original idea expressed through the medium of wire and other objects. This is so much more satisfying to the artist than sitting down and copying a jewelry design verbatim, then changing it a tiny bit and claiming it as a new design of your own. I have seen much too much of that. I know that I am swimming upstream here, but I have always regarded wire as an art material, no different from oil paint to the portrait artist, or stone to the sculptor. I don't approach jewelry as a craft but as an art form with infinite possibilities. I love the fact that when you first see wire, it does not suggest a work of art to you. It's just wire on a spool, an item with a utilitarian purpose no doubt, but not necessarily inspiring as a creative medium. Then you clean it with steel wool, cut off a piece, begin to bend it, add loops, coil finer gauge wire upon it, hammer it and spiral it, and before you know it you have a little work of art in your hands, molded and shaped by your own fingers and tools and ideas, something that is yours, something that no one can ever take away from you. That's what I love about wire."