When did you start making jewelry? How did you learn? Who taught you?
I taught myself how to make jewelry when I was 8. I wanted pierced ears and I wasn’t allowed to them until I was 18. I thought if I made my earrings, my dad couldn’t possibly refuse me wearing my art. So I started making some really horrible earrings made from questionable wire I found in the garage and plastics beads I got in random kits. Then I starting gifting them to my mother. When I was around age 13, my dad was like, “We can’t keep making your mother wear your garage creations,” so he found a bead shop and it was the first time I got silver wire and semi-precious beads. My dad did relent and let me pierce my ears at age 15.

What is your favorite project?

I made a cuff bracelet made with all cold connections. I did about 50 true rivets to hold it together. I wanted to incorporate gold, but I couldn’t afford solid sheet metal gold, so I used Bi-metal. It’s this 18K gold fused to silver. You can’t heat it so everything had to be cold connections.

Tell me about your favorite tool.

I have a cross-peen or riveting hammer from my grandfather that I found in his workshop when I was in my early 20s. It was an old family tool that has a little painted red mark that shows that it was part of his collection. I love it for texturing. I used it on the cuff bracelet.

Where do you most like to work?

I designed and built my own jewelry studio at home, but it turns out that that was the fun part. Because I’m alone in it, and I loved a shared space.

It turns out that my heart is really in tool literacy and building shared educational spaces. I want people to feel empowered to go out into the world and make informed choices about the objects and spaces around them. I want them to be more independent in understanding or repairing things. Like, if I’m in a certain situation, what kind of tool would I need? A lot of people don’t have that education. I want to enable people to have more control over their environment and know how to fix it or shape it to make it better for yourself. To make it suit you and your needs.

Any artists, books, places, etc. that you’d recommend folks to check out?
Take a class at CraftStudies. Obviously. I don’t learn much from books. They’re inspiring fun to look out, but what sticks in my mind are the tangible things. So take a class. Then go to a craft fair and really take a close look at the handmade items.

What’s in the trunk of your car?

(Laughs) What’s not in the trunk of my car? I’ve got changes of clothes, a tiny potty, cabochons, gem jars, karate uniforms. But the most important thing: I have a tape measure in every vehicle.

Case is a New Hampshire-based metalsmith whose contemporary jewelry draws inspiration from architecture, movement, and nature. She previously served as artist-in-residence at Dartmouth’s Claflin Jewelry Studio, and now supports CraftStudies as a metals studio specialist, where she mentors aspiring artists and helps create a welcoming space for all ages to engage with metalwork and jewelry design.