Kristin Miller
I grew up taking yearly trips to my grandmother’s farm in the Ozarks, where I unearthed rocks and crystals that could never be found in my native city of Dallas. It instilled in me a wonder for nature and its endless possibilities. I have a similar, instinctive fascination with the past. Whether homes, furniture or clothing, I prefer them romantically decrepit. My mom jokes about how even as a kid, I would refer to decaying buildings as “cute”. My jewelry combines sculptural, historically derived forms in metal with natural stones for an easy elegance. Art Deco graphic design, Egyptian ornamentation, Native American motifs, and architecture from my travels are constant sources of inspiration.
Unique materials are a key element of my jewelry. I’m a natural born scavenger, as evidenced by my many unusual childhood collections (antique watch faces?). I enjoy scouring gem shows, vintage shops, and online catalogues to cherry-pick interesting stones that inspire my one-of-a-kind and limited edition pieces. I’ve courted many artistic mediums in my life, each like the
nervous thrill of a new, yet comfortable relationship. In college I committed to graphic design, the art degree I deemed most unlikely to leave me bankrupt. Nearing the end of school though, a jewelry metalsmithing elective snuck into my life – unfamiliar and blazing hot – and as flings like this usually do, it left me confused with so many…feelings.
Graphic design and I made a go of it after school, but I couldn’t shake the lingering temptation of metalsmithing. So I quit my day job. And put almost as much thought into it as I did to write that sentence. Armed with the naive assumption that all you need is talent, I fumbled my way through an industry I knew nothing about. Years of work culminated in the sudden realization that I was trying to be something I wasn’t; and worse, failing at it. Frustrated, I returned to graphic design. It wasn’t until my absence from jewelry that I knew it was the most natural extension of my creativity, my hands and brain missed it like a phantom limb. I gained perspective on myself as an artist and reworked my previously considered flaws into strengths. Now I understand my place in the world – bringing art and beauty into 
people’s everyday lives. And that makes me happy.
While metalsmithing first drew me to jewelry, I’ve spent the last several years honing the craft of wax carving under the guidance of a master carver. Rather than using torches to solder sheet metal, I sculpt my forms in wax and have them molded and cast in metal. I felt an immediate kinship to the wax carving process, which I find refreshingly meditative and oddly addictive. I take pride in designing and completing production in my Dallas studio, while outsourcing the casting work to a 40-year-old artisan run company in Albuquerque.
