Candace Steppes

Being raised as part of a “do-it-yourself” type family has always taught me to be hands on with things around me. I learned at an early age how to use tools and work with my hands. These skills and love of tools has somehow managed to bring to the path of jewelry making.

As many people do I began in basic beading and pearl knotting. I found that creating things for others was very great feeling and wanted to learn a little bit more. At this particular point in my life I was laid off from work. I went back to college to finish my degree in Early Childhood Education but still needed a job. I applied for a job at my local bead store, Brea Bead Works and began the journey to learning so much more about the jewelry making process.

I found that I enjoyed working with anything that involved tools and quickly fell in love with wire and metal. I had tried my hand at Art Clay Silver and quickly shied away from it. At that time I did not believe that I was detail oriented enough to work with the product. I felt that as medium it should be respected and was not willing at the time to put in the work to get it to be what I felt that it should be as a final product.

I found myself gravitating more in the direction of metalsmithing and began to teach cold connections and some soldering. Due to the love of working with tools I found working in metals to be quite enjoyable and it helped to pay attention to the minor details needed to produce a nice piece. I eventually gave Art Clay Silver another try found that I was now much more willing to put in the time and effort to come out with a finished piece with the details and showed the respect for the medium. I am now certified as an Art Clay Silver Level 1 instructor and teach classes at Brea Bead Works

Through exploration of other mediums I have been able to create in clay with detail and I found that I like to incorporate the use of my tools in the creation of my pieces. I have begun to do more carving and am finding The ‘Gear Ring’ uses traditional tools to create the threads for the gear to move on the rod. The greatest joy for me it so see what types of things I can incorporate into the clay, the bonus is if the pieces move. ‘Take Me To Your Leader’ incorporates glass marbles (made by Amy Holms) fired into the clay and after firing still move around in their spaceship pods. This gives me jewelry that I can not only wear but play with too.

While working at Brea Bead Works I have learned many different aspects of jewelry making and have enjoyed incorporating them into my clay pieces. ‘On the Flip Side’ is a piece that I created with Jennifer Soltero where I created the metal clay bezel and she placed the polymer clay and resin. Not only is it fun to create with others but it is always fun to see what the collaboration will be as a final product.

For my clay future I would like to incorporate more of my metal work into my clay pieces and expand my knowledge in working with the base metal clays.

Contact Candace at calexdesigns@gmail.com for more information.