Meet the Artist: Michelle Canuelle, Jewelry Designer

Jewelry design has been a thread throughout my life. As a young girl, I was always drawn to unique jewelry and loved wearing unusual pieces. Eventually I began to create and wear my own jewelry. Focusing on the arts and art history in college broadened my experience of art and design, and deepened my interest in the creation of jewelry.

Always seeking out more and different forms in jewelry, at one point I approached a local jeweler about creating a custom piece for me. I was so engaged in the process of making the piece, and asked so many detailed questions, that the jeweler offered me an invitation to work with him. Delighted, I took him up on it, and I've never looked back.

For three years, under the guidance of Montana goldsmith Dale Walker, I gained extensive experience in wax carving, stone setting, and silver, gold and bronze casting. I have always been intrigued by the malleability of metal, its ability to take on natural forms, and the variety of color and texture it offers. With Dale, I had the opportunity to explore that fascination and build a solid foundation in jewelry making.

Soon I went to work creating one-of-a-kind pieces for customers, crafting the perfect piece of jewelry for each individual's taste and style. I continued to train, enhancing my knowledge by completing my Graduate Gemologist degree. I then spent time working in fine jewelry quality control as an inspector of diamonds and gemstones.

Throughout all of this, I continuously created my own pieces to sell at craft shows and to friends and family. At long last I made the decision to focus completely on my own work, and am now fortunate to have built a business around my jewelry creations.

I like to think of my jewelry as portable, wearable sculpture. In a sense I am both artist and engineer, working each metal, each stone, with absolute precision to form a final product that appears organic, natural, effortless. My pieces tend toward the bold, the stylish, the sophisticated – and they are always meticulously crafted.

I love working with metal and stones, and I thrive on the challenge of fitting each piece together perfectly. I find being a part of the art community and learning from other artists to be endlessly inspiring, and the ongoing process of growing as a jeweler never fails to engage me.

Thank you for visiting my web site. I hope you'll find something you like – and if you have a vision of the perfect piece for you, I'd love to work with you to make that vision a reality.

A special thank you to Doug Yapple for his beautiful photography of my jewelry displayed on the home page of this site.

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