Featured Artist for February: Julie Haymaker

Julie grew up in Michigan and now lives in Tucson, Arizona.  She graduated with a degree in Illustration from Kendall School of Design in Grand Rapids Michigan.  From there, she went to work for 10 years at  Hallmark Cards as a Greeting Card designer.  She left Kansas City for the southwest and continued to freelance  as a greeting card artist for another 17 years as well a s doing painted wood folk art for galleries all over the country.  She took a break for several years when life hit her with monumental personal changes and she then moved into to teaching and creating mixed media art.  She also experienced a small  stint as an owner of a mixed media gallery – this was a bucket list wish for her.  It was at this time that she discovered Shrink plastic and went on to  develop molds so the plastic could be formed into beads. This opened her up to the jewelry designing world and working with shrink plastic suited her well, as she could use colored pencils and drawing techniques honed from her years as an illustrator to create unique beads that she uses in what she calls her mixed media style jewelry.

I had the pleasure of meeting Julie in Tucson earlier this month and taking one of her classes at the Jewelry Craft and Design Expo.  Julie is not only an absolutely delightful human being; she is a talented and patient teacher and a creative inventor.  The necklace I made in class is a beautiful showpiece, and really, a whole new world opened up to me that day in her class.  With her Shrinkets, your creativity is limited only by your imagination.  As I am writing this article, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my color pencils, so that I can continue playing and creating in this brilliant medium and I can’t wait to incorporate Shrinkets into my jewelry creations.

Thank you Julie, for sharing yourself and your beautiful jewelry with us!

Julie:  I describe my style as Industrial whimsy style in the use of mixed media.

Julie:  Nature and architecture

Julie:  Art supplies stores and bead trade shows. I love discovering new mediums and looking for something I have never seen or tried.  Home improvement stores and wood craft parts stores.

Julie:  Trying not to get bogged down by the overwhelming talent of artist work I see on the internet.  Then thinking I am not good enough or there is too much “stuff “ out there.

Julie: Small sculptures in mixed media – wood, paper clay forms with dry brush painting and shrink plastic elements added along with wire wrapped embellishments.

SparkleSwap:  One of the things I’ve learned from you and appreciate about you is your use of unconventional elements in your creations; that you go beyond beads, metals and gemstones in your jewelry.  Now, whenever I step into the hardware store, dollar store, swap meet, fabric store, yard sale… I see endless possibilities for incorporating non-traditional jewelry-making components into my work.