Lela Marie Kurtz

Where do you live?

Novato, California

What inspires you as a designer-artist?

My best friend and I started taking classes and learning to bead, do some metal work and going to bead and gem shows. We were retiring from years of caring for others and really wanted to be able to make beautiful things that we could share with others. There was quite a learning curve but we got through it and just got better and better learning to work with different materials and new stitches. I started doing more metal work and mixing medias. We finally had to open a shop on Etsy since we were up to having approximately 400 items we had made throughout the years. We had sold some, giving lots of items for gifts and donating items to neighborhood causes. Colors are what motivates me. All the colors in the world, natural stones and colors in nature make me want to make items that have similar colors and mixing the colors together to see what I can come up with. I am amazed at the colors in nature, rocks, gemstones, plants. These all give me ideas of what I want to on a piece of jewelry.

What medium do you work with mostly?

I do a lot of beading projects using gemstones and seed beads. I love doing wire work and have fallen in love with larimar and gold together. I have many pieces where I wire wrap beautiful pieces of high quality larimar and turn them into gorgeous bracelets and necklaces. I love doing spiral stitch jewelry using very small gemstone beads. I have beaded several pieces using large gemstone cabochons which I connect with beading stitches using several different stitches and gemstones beads, briolettes and gold findings.

Why did you become enchanted with this style of jewelry-making?

Making jewelry just seem to come a natural extension of how we wanted to put items together so people could enjoy them by wearing them as necklaces, bracelet and earring. Wearable art is a passion. The colors in gemstones amaze me. I discovered larimar a few years ago and found it to be one of the most amazing gemstones since it came in so many shades of blue and had such incredible colors and patterns. Wrapping these gorgeous gems with high quality gold wire became a passion. I hold it in my hand and just love to see what comes next.

Where and how do you sell your jewelry?

Right now I sell on Etsy and some shows.

What is the name of the piece you submitted with your success story?

Larimar Neckpiece with Peruvian Opals, Swiss Blue Topaz and Freshwater Pearls

What inspired this design?

My love of larimar and wanting to make a neck piece that included the colors of beads I had on hand. I tried to match the color in the larimars I was working with.

How did it come together?

I had a basic idea in my mind but mostly it came together as I kept adding more beads. I never expected to go this far but I just kept adding more until I felt I was very happy with this piece.