Margareta Lipinski, jewelry

MARGARETA LIPINSKI

BIO AND ARTIST STATEMENT

I was 28 years old when I started my art career, although arts in every form have always been a passion of mine. In 1985 I was a newly-wed girl from Sweden, just having moved to my new home in Montana with my husband Robin, when I started taking pottery classes to make some functional ceramics wear. I and Robin opened an art gallery with a fully equipped pottery studio. It was located in the Flathead valley, Montana. We named the gallery Wishful Thinking Enterprise. I worked there for four years making and selling ceramics and selling other art works made by 25 local artists. That included paintings, metalsmith jewelry, hand forged knives and obsidian knapped knives, among other medium artworks represented in our art gallery.

In the year 2004 we sold our gallery and home to depart for another adventure. We moved to Kenai peninsula, Alaska. So it was in Alaska that I first tried the art of metal smithing in the year 2008. It so happened that a beginner silversmith workshop opened up a spot for me to participate. So my exciting journey of making wearable art started then. I was so in love with this mastering of a, to me, new artform, so I wanted to dedicate full time to make wearable art. I, piece by piece, started to build a small silversmith studio.  It is a lot that goes into that. 

So, I design little pieces of metal jewelry. I choose the metal, either copper bronze or sterling silver. I cut metal,  I pierce metal, then jewelry-saw the metal. I hammer the metal to different shapes and also texture the metal in many different ways. I bend, I reticulate and use many other ways to create an interesting surface. Then I solder the pieces of metal together. The solder acts like glue. I give the jewelry different styles of patina. I very often look for a suitable gemstone that I create a bezel around, so to set it on a chosen place on the object. It could be on a ring, on a pendant or a pair of earrings.  This will usually enhance the jewelry immensely. I create designs and hand-fabricate jewelry in sterling silver, bronze, copper, gold-filled, also 18 and 14 carat gold.

I love crafting and smithing little pieces of wearable art.

– Margareta Lipinski

You can reach me at M.Lipinski1@outlook.com.