"Why copper? I thought you were a wire wrap artist!"

Gloria heard that a lot when wearing (or showing) her copper jewelry.  There's always something more you want to accomplish.  She learned wire wrapping way back in 2004, but since then she studied other disciplines as well. It didn't take long to get the urge to move away from wire and do some jewelry for which wire just wasn't a good foundation.

But why copper?  Copper is so... common.  Perhaps. But copper is earthy.  Copper is durable.  And even though all metal prices have gone sky-high, copper is relatively inexpensive, readily available, and fun to work with!

This may be an oversimplification, but it's accurate: to work with wire, you must learn to guide it, to finesse it, to coax it.  With copper, you can beat it.  Fold it.  Drill holes in it.  Crush it.  Anneal it.  And beat it again!

Gloria's love for wire wrap jewelry grew from her love of the beauty the God puts into the rocks at our feet.  Copper allows more of a focus on form and mastery of the metal itself, rather than relying on its natural beauty.  So she felt her creativity expressed itself more readily than with wire.  Gloria could be impulsive, intricate, and wacky all in the same piece.

Copper allows a jewelry artist real license to let her imagination flow freely.  Gloria's copper creations were an opportunity to be close to her through the details in the copper.  She invested the entirety of her skills in order to transform a hunk of metal into something beautiful.