Gretchen Newman

Mixed Metal Jewelry & Lapidary Arts

Splash Gallery Member since 2025

Gretchen is a silversmith and lapidary artist from a minimalist tradition. Having lived on the land in Chile as a young adult with no electricity and running water, she learned to make silver jewelry by forming metals with basic hand tools and setting stones by kerosene lantern. She was drawn to connect with the primal feeling of shaping metal with only the most basic of tools. Since moving back to her birthplace, the Pacific Northwest, she started using some power tools, but many of her techniques stay close to the ancient ways of forming metals with fire and hammers.

 

Growing up with a family of machinists and a deep ecology perspective, she developed a fascination with materials, seeing how things work, living lightly, and wanting each material to live its best life. She is often found trying to elevate the simplest of discards into art.

 

Learning silversmithing in Chile, her style started out heavily influenced by that experience – simple yet strong, dominated by organic shapes and regionally available natural stones. Her current style has evolved into an Earthy cubist with a mix of delightful Steam punk – perhaps a mysteriously mechanical feel with a touch of elegance that speaks to a past era of steam engines and velvet curtains.

 

Gretchen works mostly with fine and sterling silver, and a bit of copper, brass and gold. Most of her stones are from the Americas, ethically sourced from local collectors or small, low-impact mines. She cuts and polishes many of the stones that go into her work. Intarsia, or stone-to-stone inlay, has recently captured her imagination.

 

She likes to create each piece to be unique and symbolic, and gets extreme joy knowing that meaning will vary with each individual.

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Instagram: Instagram.com/Olyartesania

Email: gretchennewz@gmail.com