Moose Spotlight: The Beauty of a Metalsmith
Meet Milina Childress of @dolceartjewelry. She has been metalsmithing since November of 2015.
With her wonderful works, we asked what inspired Milina to start creating jewelry. It began when she was growing up - she admired her mom’s collection of jewelry from silversmiths. According to Milina, her mom had a large collection of vintage turquoise and she was enamored by it. She recalled picking up a wire wrapping in 2014, and then eventually taking the plunge into silversmithing the following year. That’s when all the magic started!
As an artist, the most challenging thing for Milina is getting out of her own head. She tries to push herself in learning new techniques and styles, but she is her own worst critic and she admits she gets befuddles easily when things don’t go how she expects them to.
We’re pretty sure a lot of artists can relate to this, but we also believe the more you challenge yourself to do better, the more rewarding it is.
A piece of her work that she can’t forget is an emotional one - recently, she made her first hollow form to hold cremation ashes of a woman’s pup that had passed. Since then, it opened up a new love for her to want and make similar pieces to help people to heal from their loss of loved ones. That is so special!
Nature inspires Milina in the sense that she loves working with natural sones. Often, she prefers to let the sone tell the story in her work. She adds, “I want to add to the natural beauty of the material I’m working with.”
Being lovers of turquoise, we asked her what does she like about it. She said turquoise is a comfort stone for her. As mentioned earlier, her mother had a collection of vintage turquoise jewelry and with that, she grew up admiring this particular gemstone the most as it’s her mother’s favorite. Milina also loves the variety of colors, the pale blues to vibrant greens with its chocolate matrix.
Here are a couple of examples of her stunning work:
by @dolceartjewelry on Instagram
Finally, we asked her for tips for fellow artists. She mentioned not to let oneself get too comfortable with one’s work and to try all of the new designs and techniques, especially the ones that seem to scare them. To quote her, “Even if you fail, try again!”
We love it when artists go out of their comfort zones and try new things to better themselves and their designs!
Follow her amazing work on Instagram: @dolceartjewelry
Check out her website: https://www.instagram.com/dolceartjewelry/
What do you like about Turquoise Moose?
"The quality that I have received from Turquoise Moose has been exquisite. The colors are always true to what I expect and they have been the perfect thickness, without too much backing. Each one, even those with harder edges like rectangles has been able to be set with ease!"
- Milina Childress
