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Michele McManus - Jewelry Designer
Specializing In Unique Pendants - Earrings
I remember being about 6 or 7 years old and being asked that age old question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I would say "I am going to go to FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology). I am going to design clothes." I know, I was a strange kid. I did not do that. Here are some of the things I have done. At 16 I graduated from high school. The summer in-between high school and college, I traveled through the US. I made beads from Playdoh strung them on telephone wire. People gave me money for these "creations". I know, I was a strange teen. A word of warning Playdoh melts in the heat of the sun. Throughout college I was the organizer and facilitator of our school's craft shows, classes and co-op.
In the 1970's I co-owned a leather shop. Most of what we sold we made ourselves. For 15 years I made my living selling real estate. My hobbies have included, weaving/spinning, hand building clay forms, carving then firing in the raku process, polymer clay, beading, metalsmithing. Then in the fall of 1999 I saw kiln formed glass. Specifically, dichroic glass. I was hooked. The colors were captivating and moved me emotionally. In January of 2000 I went to the Best Bead Show in Tucson, Arizona. That is where I purchased my first kiln. (I own 5). The following year 2000 I was an exhibitor at the Best Bead Show.
I approached learning about the glass and the processes pretty much the way I do most things. With passion, zeal and determination to create something unique pristinely finished.
As opposed to self-taught I consider myself “self-mistaked”. Shortly after my third year of working with the glass, I decided with only 24 hours in the day, I wanted to spend all of it on glass. Initially, I wanted dichroic glass cabochons to bezel set in my sterling silver, beaded jewelry. At this time my jewelry is primarily dichroic glass. Some pieces have sterling silver and beads. One of the things that amazes me about kiln formed glass - are the visually very significant changes every step in the process. I am like a child waking up Christmas morning every time I open the kiln.
I start with full sheets of glass. Each piece I make has dozens sometimes hundreds of tiny pieces of glass. It is fired in a kiln then worked and refired up to 6 times. I finish the glass the same way semi-precious stones are finished. With diamond encrusted lapidary equipment. Starting with a coarse grit and using finer and finer grits to achieve pristinely finished pieces. It gives me a great deal of joy to share my work. What a gratifying feeling to enhance someone’s life with something that gives them pleasure.
