Mariah Wheeler, Jewelry Artist
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone. For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, but has trouble enough of its own, my favorite lines from a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, illustrate a source for the keenness I feel to bring value into the world. What I want to bring is more than surface beauty - depth, meaning, joy, love, and attention to the process of bringing these to fruition. Grand as it sounds I mean to affect the very quality of life around us.
In one of my previous incarnations of this life, which was helping people with disabilities train for and find jobs, we described vocations as focusing either on Data, People, or Things. Having spent my first 12 adult years working with Data (accounting), I had just spent the next 12 years in human services – People. Becoming a jeweler was not what I expected even though it completed the trio by bringing my focus to “Things.” I began making “Things” in 1992 when I wanted a pair of moccasins. After failing to find any available I set out to learn to make them myself. Within a year I was tracing feet and taking orders for moccasins in my husband’s leather booth at local craft shows. I found that I loved working with the materials and with my hands in this way. My favorite part was sewing the intricate bead patterns. One day holding a moccasin vamp I saw the bead design in a new way. What a pretty necklace this would make!
Soon I had learned bead weaving and stringing which allowed me to create designs separate from the leather, and was making jewelry full time. I loved focusing on the properties and special lore of gemstones and incorporating them with the beadwork. I found joy in the delight that others found in wearing these creations. I learned to design and fuse dichroic glass from Sally Israelson at the Carrboro Art Center, and added fine silver from Precious Metal Clay by studying with Master Teacher, Chris Darway. I am now a Certified PMC Teacher myself. I continue to learn from experimentation, studying books, meditating, and from spending time with other artists and in the natural world. I find that my Data training (A.S. in accounting) helps me to imagine and lay out patterns, and that my People skills (MEd in Training & Development) are vital to presenting my creations to others.
I create quality original-design, personally-made jewelry. Each piece develops with a grateful attitude toward the animal, mineral, or vegetable that provided the material and the inspiration. It is my expectation that these pieces will be received and used with the same attitude of love and respect. I enjoy letting a piece form with whatever materials “want to” collaborate in the creation. Many of my pieces are directly inspired by the natural world, even containing impressions of leaves, mushrooms and other of nature’s beings. When I am not making jewelry in my studio upstairs at Pittsboro’s historic Blair Hotel, I’m likely to be found across the street at my storefront, The Joyful Jewel, where my own creations join the work of over 20 regional artists making “one of a kind treasures for the discerning soul.”
