Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
Issue link: http://ornamentmagazine.epubxp.com/i/476566
A life in jewelry for Cara Romano is lively and multifaceted, after visiting her studio- gallery in Ellsworth, Maine, one is left amazed by the breadth of her activities. She conducts a whirlwind run of shows and fairs: CraftBoston, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology's biennial Treasures Sale and Show in Philadelphia, and the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, New York. As board president of the Maine Crafts Association, she is helping to shape the future of this vibrant organization. She is also sponsoring her first intern and, last but not least, designing new work. Romano specializes in textile metal jewelry. She uses felt and silver in combination to create earrings, cuffs, brooches, necklaces, and other ornaments. She has developed several signature lines, including Abacus (based on the counting frame that served as one of the earliest calculating tools) and the ever- popular Cherry Bomb earrings. Over time she has pushed the felted wool toward a "more decorative place" by stitching with a quilter's thread to create contemporary tweed. Romano sources her wool according to color—master felt artist and fellow Maine-based jeweler Marianne DuBois helps her obtain the fiber, which comes from England, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere. Romano's studio-gallery is on the ground floor of the former Masonic Hall on Ellsworth's Main Street (the space itself was once the coat room). She shares the place with jeweler Jackie Haines, who specializes in beadwork. Last year they began displaying a handful of other craft artists, an "entrepreneurial risk," says Romano, but one that has paid off. jewelry arts Carl Little HANDS AND HAMMERS by Wylde Photography.