McKenzie Mendel

"Texture and color in a small piece of art is my way to translate my love for nature's little details. The pattern on a leaf, the shape of a flower, the movement of water. It's an amazing process to transform solid material into a tiny memento that’s a glimpse of nature's delicate beauty."

Handmade in the heart of the Pacific Northwest, McKenzie's jewelry holds a memory of its landscape and people. Each piece symbolizes characteristics from an evergreen forest, the windswept high desert, the wild coastline, or a cottage garden. Rivers, lakes, and mountains find their way into her pieces through the use of hammered lines. Combining metals and colorful stones captures the softness of flowers and leaves. McKenzie’s love for the outdoors and gardening inspire her work while her passion for the process of creating jewelry brings each idea to life.

It starts with intuition and curiosity. Recycled sterling silver is the canvas for each creation. Scraps of gold are melted down for small dew drop accents and petal cups, or rolled out into a delicate organic shape. The stone choice happens in the way sapphires look like a summer garden. How a turquoise looks like a butterfly wing. Or how a jasper reminds McKenzie of home. Texture is always an addition that firmly establishes the narrative. Out comes the old beat up hammer or handmade chasing tool to transform the metal yet again adding tiny hammered details that create movement as they catch the light.

McKenzie has been making her jewelry independently since 2011. Her studio is in a little cottage surrounded by her plants where her puppy Colby plays in the sun all day. She has always been passionate about the arts and honed her skills in jewelry at the Savannah College of Art and Design where she graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Metals and Jewelry in 2009.