Kelly Jean Conroy

Kelly Jean Conroy

Is an enthusiastic metalsmith and teaches in Massachusetts, America. She makes contemporary and conceptual pieces as well as wearable studio jewellery pieces that she sells online. All of her pieces have some sort of organic influence to them. Many of her pieces are representational to objects found in nature and others are made out of natural objects such as bones, dried flowers and dead animals.
Conroy’s work consists of sketches of birds and flowers that are etched onto metal and shell. she also creates neckpieces that consists of fragments of bone, dead bodies of birds and pierced elements in metal. Conroy sources all of her design elements from her childhood memories, and finds it important that the motifs of nature used in her designs have a personal significance to her.

 I am drawn to her aesthetic style as well as the deeper conceptual meaning behind her work and how she uses the motifs found in nature that are associated with her childhood memories as a form of self reflection. 

Conceptually, Conroy uses these elements to express her “ideas about the cycle of life and the beauty and sadness in death”. She creates jewellery pieces that beautify and break the taboos and fears surrounding the idea of death. Conroy uses her work as a reflection of her inner most feelings and emotions surrounding the idea of death. I want to Use nature nature as a representation or symbol of my personal life and the emotions and ideas associated with the happenings therein.

I feel that my work relates to Conroy’s work to an extent because my jewellery reflects my personal ideas about life and me as a person. I also use elements that represent memories and significant moments in my life. My aesthetics also reflect nature as I create jewellery items that are representational to nature.

Holiday Jewellery

Ash Vials

Ash Vials

Earlier in the year, a friend of mine’s father had passed away due to heart complications similar to that of my late father’s. She asked me to make her three little ash vials to use as a locket to keep her father’s ashes. This was a difficult project for me, not just in technique but also emotionally as it brought back some of the emotions that I felt when I lost my own father. Technically this was a difficult project as I had to come up a way in which the vials could close up and seal. I did that by adding a double latch on either side of the vials. The vials also had to have holes at the top so that the chain could be thread through the vials as opposed to having a bale system. All in all this was a tricky project but because I had to make THREE at the same, it was even more difficult as they had to look exactly the same.

I am very grateful for having done this project because I learnt a new trick to help me cut off tube that is perfectly flat and perpendicular at the bottom. Here is how it is done:

1.       After prepping a piece of tube (soldered and straight) , near the ugly end (part that was used to pull through the draw plate) wrap a piece of masking tape around the tube to get a more or less perpendicular mark and cut off

2.       Take the piece of tape off of the tube and place the untouched opposite end of the tube in your rotary motor like you would a burr or drill bit.

3.       Start spinning the piece of tube and take your 400 buff stick and place it flat against the end that was just cut off

4.       Let the tube spin against the buff stick until you can see that it is 100% perpendicular when placing it against your set square.

5.       Now you can use your Vernier gauge to mark off the exact measurement that you need and cut off tube as normal.  

After completing this, another client approached me for a similar request. This time the customer requested a round vial that had an etched pattern on the surface. I enjoyed making this vial as it allowed me to experiment some more with etching. I ended up with a gorgeous little vial that sealed off in an air tight manner using a permanent locking system involving a rivet. After the ashes are poured into the little container, the plug lid would be pushed into the tube hole at the top and a hole had to be drilled right through the top tube and the plug lid. A rivet was then put into this hole and sealed off permanently This of course meant that I had to handle dead people's ashes. FUN

before etching

after etching

final design

from Dust to Dust

Vegetable Garden

When spring time began in late September, I cleared an overgrown sunny patch in the back of our yard to plant a few vegetable plants. I uprooted bushes and shrubs and levelled out the ground with the compost that I have been making for the past few years.

 I planted squash, marrows, tomatoes, eggplant, spinach, chilli, bell pepper and lettuce and towards the end of October my garden was in full bloom and some crops had even produced little vegetables and as November began, My marrow plant had quadrupled in size producing marrows that were as large as my forearms and it had many little bees pollinating its sun yellow flowers. My lettuce and spinach crops had also flourished in growth and I was able to have a weekly supply of fresh leaves to use in salads. My garden produced abundantly.

However, summer surprised us with showers of rain that completely drenched the soil and the humidity that came along with it wreaked havoc on my crops bringing about a plague that destroyed my creation. Death came to visit. Overnight, a grey powdery mildew had formed on the leaves of my marrow plant, despite my attempt in saving my plant with sprinkles of sulphur; the plant succumbed to the curse.

Once again I was reminded of the fragility of life and how nature always conquers man. After Adam ate from the tree of life, the earth became cursed with death as the eyes of man opened after having a taste of sin. Today we are continuously reminded of this. There is no success without hard work, there is no control over nature, there is no control over Gods will. From the dust that we came from, to the dust we will return.

Genesis 3 verses 17-19 “ the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made.

Flowers and fruits

Fresh Produce

death