From the Mountains to the Sea

In 2008 I enrolled in my first jewelry class ~ a forging class.  The 8 hours of hammering sterling silver AWAKENED A PASSION and that passion immediately became a driving force to become a trained silversmith. 

Two hours from my (former) hometown Asheville, NC and nestled even deeper in the Blue Ride Mountains is the John C Campbell Folk School (JCCFS) in Brasstown, NC, which for 95 years has offered adult year round weeklong classes.  Their “weeklong” classes are designed with  1 goal….to “hammer in” (pun intended) the skills to learn a technique to saturation. Over many years I took every silversmith/ jewelry class they had loading up my silversmith toolbox of knowledge and I took some classes that were just good sister classes to silversmith because I  wanted to be back at JCCFS, to experience the creative energy that is infused in the air, for another class with lifelong friends I had made thru the years of classes there.   Several of us  return routinely to take another class together….we call it our reunion classes. @folkschool.org

 I became fascinated with the hand forging techniques of ancient jewelers and I now produce my jewelry in the fashion of those traditional silversmiths. Using forging to create even the, easily purchased, most basic of components appealed to my sense of tradition. Each piece of my jewelry is hand forged as authentically as possible and I use specific tools to manipulate, shape, and texture the metal.  My work encompasses a blend of the old in the sense of fabrication techniques and the new in the sense of modern design. 

This 15 year journey has taken me down a variety of paths.

It was in one of the JCCFS classes (a cold connection class: connecting metal without soldering)  that my next ‘path’ prematurely showed itself.  Mastering the jewelers saw is a technique vital to silversmiths as without it the intricacies of many styles of jewelry would not be possible.  Luckily for me, I saw with ease.  From the moment I first used a saw, with its hundreds of tiny little teeth on each saw blade, I knew I had found my first FAVORITE tool. We were in class sawing out a design in silver and a student down from me was struggling.  The result being breaking blade after blade trying to saw around a tight corner.  The instructor was assisting another student and I felt sorry for her and I went over and I asked her if she would let me show her how I pull back on the saw as I enter the corner, releasing the teeth from the silver and then how I would begin to turn the blade in the corner to the proper angle always continuing the up and down motion of sawing through the entire movement (keeping tension off of the blade), and then allowing the blade to again grab the silver, to begin sawing again.  She was delighted and it helped her!   Later the teacher came up to me and said, “l pay attention to everything and I see everything and I hope you consider teaching one day because I think you would be really good.” I locked that sentence away and didn’t revisit it again until several years later after we had moved in 2014 from Asheville, North Carolina to Rancho Santa Fe, California a sleepy little town just North of San Diego.

To digress—in my first Silversmith class at JCCFS, the teacher and now a dear friend, told me she loved my quirky style.  Thank you ,Susan Jones @skjartjewelry because those simple words told me it was ok to step outside of the lines and to design outside of the box. I am not sure where my style would be today without her telling me having a quirky style was, not only ok, it was cool. She added she wished her creative mind would go in that direction.  In those early stages of learning, and figuring out who I was in this skill, the fact that my jewelry was different caused me to worry if it was worthy…..she helped me realize, it was and i am and will  be grateful forever for sharing her words with me.  Never underestimate the power of words…..good and bad. 

I wanted to meet people in the jewelry world in California and I enrolled in classes at the San Diego Mineral and Gem Society learning lapidary and then entered their silversmith classes.  During one class the instructor asked me if I had ever taught before(what a surprise hearing this again)? The instructor then explained that he was going to Thailand and he was looking for someone to take over the weekly beginning silversmith classes there at the SD Mineral and Gem for 3 months and would I consider it?    I said yes.  I don’t think I can describe what a joy it was to teach those 3 months.  The students were all adults and I loved them.  The students responded with positive appreciation for me as well.  I fell completely in love with teaching!  Additionally,  the students suggested I enter jewelry into the San Diego Fair Jewelry Competition. Not being from San Diego, this was new to me.  

I followed their urging and that year won the first of 3 First Place Blue Ribbons and 1 Second Place Red Ribbon over the next two years. 

Several years pass and in late 2018, I am making custom jewelry and doing shows and just loving my life as a silversmith and I get a call from a local silversmith, who I had met several years back. She is opening a jewelry teaching lab in San Diego, and would I consider teaching for her? Holy cow…here we go!😃.  

Of course I said, yes!  

2019 was a year filled with teaching. I taught classes including cabochon setting, casting,  torch fired enamel  and hand forged -chain making.   It was a fun filled year of colleague collaboration, meeting incredible adult students all interested in silversmith and the classes were just incredible to teach, and I enjoyed sharing a lot of tips and tricks I have  picked up along my silversmith journey to help ease  some of their frustration of the difficult silversmith techniques.   AND THEN…..in March of 2020 the covid pandemic shut down the Jewelry Lab along with the rest of the world and sadly when we began to poke our heads out again, the Anneville Jewelry Lab had not survived and was unable to reopen, after the many months of shutdown. 

The giving aspect of teaching was now part of me and important to me.  I missed it during the covid months so I decided to teach private and group silversmith classes in my personal studio.  Life couldn’t be better.

Though my jewelry concentration is still custom jewelry I am enjoying  tent vending at festivals and street fairs. This is such a great way of staying in touch with the communities around me and the best part is physically meeting and getting to know my customers.

Julia (Julie or Jules) Monroe