Made in St. Louis: Crestwood jeweler is inspired by tribal cultures, nature
When Lauren Nall took her first class in metalsmithing at Southwest Missouri State with world-class enamelist Sarah Perkins, she set a course for life. “I got hooked from the moment I started. I loved it,” she says. “And I just stuck with it.”
Exploring the past, creating a future in design • The modernist jewelry movement of the 1960s and the resurgence of traditional Native American jewelry styles strongly influenced metalsmiths at the time, and Nall was no exception.
“I had stayed with the Acoma tribe for a workshop with a master potter. We were on the reservation in New Mexico near the Four Corners region studying form and pattern,” she says. “Even though my work now doesn’t necessarily reflect a tribal feeling today, that’s where the patterning started.
“As a student, I created utilitarian pieces in metal that Native Americans would have used, like seed jars, offering bowls and waterspout vessels with rhythmic, repetitive patterns on them. I realized the forming and the techniques I used to create them could be easily incorporated into making forms that we wear.”
Today, in her well-equipped studio, Nall does just that.
If I had a hammer • The opening shot on Nall’s FletcherWorks website doesn’t showcase her jewelry. Instead it shows her collection of hand tools, hammers and oddments.
“Old hammers that have rusted and eroded produce a wonderful rock-like texture,” she says. “Toying around with tools is integral; they are a huge part of my inspiration. I’m a tool geek for sure. As far as I’m concerned you can never have too many hammers.”
Roll with me • Many of Nall’s jewelry designs begin with a rolled sheet of metal. She uses her rolling mills in combination with fabrics, recycled wallpaper scraps and other found items to create surface textures and patterns for her pieces.
She then shapes, cuts or forms the metal to fabricate earrings, necklaces and more. Her origami-like pleated metal earrings require a lot of advance planning, but Nall welcomes challenges. As she fully exploits and experiments with the tools at her disposal, she welcomes the happy accidents that come from the process.
Be still and the earth will speak to you • In addition to her formed and textured metal pieces, Nall makes rings, bracelets and necklaces with bezel set stones from the earth. She chooses stones like leopard skin jasper, turquoise and dinosaur bone, petrified and polished — stones with texture, veining and history. She favors labradorite and opals, gems with depth, iridescence and fiery color.
“Here’s something cool — the parallels of rocks and metals. They are all underground. We find them, extract them, we clean them up and everyone sees them in a new light,” she says.
Nall also hand makes glass cabochons using wildly green lichen she’s gathered in Oregon and Idaho, another nod to the treasures of the earth. The foundations of her work, originally grounded in Native American respect for the land, has grown over the years to embrace nature in all its forms — trees and flowers, feathers and even sea creatures.
“We’re a team,” she says. “He is very supportive of me and my art. He’s with me at every turn. His career is in real estate with Garcia Properties — he doesn’t like to toot his own horn, but he is very good at real estate. Still, he makes time to help me.
“We go to my shows as a family. He sets up and takes down my booth with me. When our children were younger, he took care of them while I worked with customers,” she says.
Their children are older now, “but this is how life’s always been for them since birth with Mom. In their world it’s just another thing that I do, but it’s definitely unique. It’s not like getting up and going to a desk job every day.”