SPOTLIGHT ON ... DESIGNER
January 2008

Our featured designer for this month is Stephanie Sersich

Since I was threading yarn through pasta I have been making jewelry. My mom, Annie, is an artist too and was always doing art projects in the house while I was growing up. My mom collects ethnic jewelry and eclectic art. She sews wild (but elegant) clothing and knits stop-you-on-the-street sweaters. I've inherited a love of beads and fibers as well as the desire to create unique wearables by hand from her.

In 1996 I saw beads made by Sage.  She used lampworking to hook me into the power of the bead.  Lampworking is an ancient glass-working technique whereby one winds glass rods around a steel mandrel over flame to build layers of color.  There it was, the amalgamation of color and texture I craved.  I enrolled in a beadmaking workshop with Sage and her master-beadmaker husband, Tom Holland—a week that clearly has made all the difference in my life.  All my techniques and tricks of the trade I learned from Tom and Sage.  At least once a year, I saddle up and head out Arkansas way to get a creative infusion from my friends and mentors.

I taught myself a variety of traditional stringing and knotting techniques and developed a few of my own.  The “Spiny Knotting” technique I developed allows more beads and small treasures to be bound into a single piece, which is great since each one of these “ingredients” adds a distinct energy that works to complement all the others.  Though these collections take the form s of jewelry pieces, I think of myself as the creator of talismanic objects.

I have always thought that an artists’ work helps to show people how they can see things differently.  When each of us creates art, we imbue our work with a distinctive blend of our own experiences and perspectives.  My own combination of experiences helps to shape my work.  My experience with color is from handling textiles, studying art history and from spending time in my mother’s garden.  My excitement about texture comes from admiring the lush world on the bottom of the ocean and the entire plant kingdom.

There are two things I love about my job--combining colors and textures, and teaching.  Nothing brings me more joy than coaching students to make things they had never envisioned, but that come from inside them.  The exchange of excitement gives me a true connection to other people.  The power of creating something joyful from inanimate materials is a thrilling experience.  I just can’t get enough of it.  Other things that make me happy are my crazy dog, my sweetheart Tom, and acting silly with my friends and family.

Stephanie Sersich has been a full-time jewelry and bead maker for eleven years in Portland, Maine. She developed her beadmaking skills under the guidance of Sage and Tom Holland and continues to love taking classes in many media. For her signature jewelry, Stephanie incorporates beads and a mixture of vintage glass, ethnic beads, natural materials, and fibers using her “Spiny Knotting” technique. She teaches her techniques all over the world and has been featured in national publications such as The Washington Post, Ornament Magazine, Bead & Button Magazine, and in many books. Her own book, Designing Jewelry with Glass Beads will be published by Interweave Press this spring. Visit her website at www.sssbeads.com