CELEBRATE THE BODY 2023
- May 12, 2023 - June 10, 2023
- Exhibition
- /
- Artwork
- /
- Artists
-
Joan A Wescott x
Bio
Joan is a self-taught silversmith jewelry designer living in Helena, Montana for over 40 years. She is a retired Registered nurse, working locally in Intensive Care for most of her nursing career. While still working in acute medical care, Joan started designing jewelry with sea glass and sea pottery shards found in traveling. This creative process became an outlet and very healing from the stress of acute hospital nursing. By 2018, Joan started exploring metalsmithing with sterling silver. Having no formal education in fabricating with metals, Joan learned by trial and error. Some DVDs were helpful but for Joan it took a week-long workshop in metalsmithing that really started the wheels in motion. Joan continues to take in-person metalsmithing classes each year. Her earlier metalsmithing designs are included in the beautiful 2020 Intentional Metalsmithing Book by Artist and Silversmith Susan Lenart.
Joan’s jewelry designs are found and sold at 1+1=1 Gallery downtown Helena, Montana, and a few juried shows throughout the year, and on her website.
Artist Statement
I have been told I am Brave. This is in reference to metalsmithing and the willingness to try most any technique when using a torch. My jewelry tells a story of exploration, taking risks, and not following rules. I build my designs organically with texture and dimension which is how I see our world. I enjoy creating hollow-form boxes, creative connections, and working with a variety of gemstones. It is a process really. I allow the gemstone to help guide me with my designs by the cut of the stone, type of stone, and the vibrational energy coming from the gemstone. I am connected with my art by the practice of daily mindful meditation, and by practicing living in the moment, which is easy for me when I am in my studio fabricating artisan jewelry.