Shaya Durbin

"Jewelry is about feeling beautiful. It is a celebration of the intimate relationship between ornament and the body. My work honors this relationship with artistic, sculptural designs that are a pleasure to wear. Beautiful jewelry is not about trends—it is about falling in love with a piece that feels as if it were made for you."

A lush experience of color and form, Shaya Durbin’s jewelry accentuates the beauty of carefully selected gems with subtle designs, creating the organic aesthetic so characteristic of her work. Balancing strong, sculptural forms with the femininity of vibrant gems, each piece is carefully considered with meticulous attention to detail, showing a passion for design that is instantly recognizable.

Durbin creates jewelry that is quietly complex, readily combining myriad metalsmithing techniques while designing for subtlety. Rooted in the history and craft of jewelry making, she combines traditional techniques of stone setting and fabrication with the sculptural forms of one-of-a-kind metal casting. She works exclusively with recycled precious metals.

Durbin was born in Oakland, California, and is a second-generation jeweler. She studied fine art in Maine, Italy, and Chicago before returning to her hometown to pursue her passion for goldsmithing. She has been designing and crafting jewelry in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2005 with the recent addition of a studio in Seattle.

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Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Wearable Expressions, Palos Verdes Art Center, Ranchos Palos Verdes, CA, 2017
CraftForms, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA, 2019
Smithsonian Craft Fair, National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., 2019
American Craft Council Show, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA, 2019
American Craft Council Show, Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, MD, 2019