An Interview with Metalsmith Kelly Jean Conroy

I always like to define myself as half-teacher, half-artist because that's how I truly feel. My teacher identity is intensely important to me. I went to school for Art Ed, and teaching people how to be metalsmiths or make jewelry gives me so much joy. But, then, I also really dedicate a ton of my time, and I don't have much time, to my practice. So, I think it helps inform my teaching. I think it goes hand in hand. It's an equal 50:50 split.

You know, I wish I had what I teach — high-school metalsmithing. I didn't know metals were an art form or something I could do until I was at Syracuse (University) working on my portfolio. You're supposed to take as many classes as possible and try many things. So, when you enter the field, you have experienced many mediums. So, I took my first metals class my sophomore year and was like, 'Oh, that was really great.' I loved that. I thought I was a painter because, like most kids in school, even the kids in this high school, they think, 'Oh, I'm gonna be an artist. I'm a painter.' That's what artists are in many middle and high-school brains. So, for me, it was like, 'This is a whole new world,' and I took a second semester of metals.

I convinced my mom to sign us up for enameling classes because they had enamels at Syracuse, but nobody knew how to use them. And I was like, 'Ooh!' I would say that enameling was my gateway drug because it was like color on the metal. I could do miniature paintings on a necklace, and then I thought, 'Oh, people run out of wall space, but they always want more jewelry.'

I used copper blanks and painted stuff on them, and people would buy them. I started an Etsy shop, and that was really fun. It went from there. Just like grew and grew. I would read more books, watch (videos), and teach myself more things. And then finally, after being an art teacher for general art, I was like, 'I'm going back to school to be a real metalsmith.' So, I went to graduate school for jewelry after being in the real world for five years.

I will say that I don't think that grad school makes you become a real metalsmith. It just helps you become an artist and thinker, which I got from that. The technical stuff I wanted to know was still self-taught, even in graduate school. Because they aren't teaching you the nuts and bolts of making things in graduate school. So, in that sense, I was behind my peers because many of them had metals in their undergrad. It's funny, though, this show I just did (the MAD show), I feel like I finally made it. I finally proved to myself, 'I'm a real metalsmith.' Which is kind of weird. I've been doing it for twenty years now.

I think my parents were happy I wanted to do Art Ed because I could be a teacher, and there is income there. But, thankfully, I really truly do love teaching. It wasn't like, 'I'll just do this because.' I really like the passing of knowledge, especially in the craft field. That whole idea of apprentice and master. And you pass on the torch. You pass on the skills.

She's doing this amazing laser-cut paper, and then she's going to roll her print on the metal. She's doing, like, a little custom logo.

People will tell me, 'Oh, I'm not an artist. I didn't go to school for it.' I'm like, 'That has nothing to do with it!' I feel like graduate school really gave me the confidence I was hoping for in (developing) my voice as an artist. When I started graduate school, I didn't know what I was going to do, right? I was like, 'I'm gonna make these pretty things.' And (instead, professors posed questions like) 'What is it all about? Why do you make things?' So, they really just delve deeper into why you make things and why it's important to you. And why you should make things for the rest of your life. That has been the most valuable thing to me.

The work from graduate school has propelled me to what I'm doing now, with my teaching and the (workshops) I get tapped for teaching, like laser cutting, piercing, and casting natural objects. You can (take) elements off these big crazy pieces you make in graduate school, and then they can form like bodies of work you could take for years. That was a wonderful gift that graduate school gave me.

(My) work is about beauty, death, and life cycles, like flowers growing up through bones. As a child, I would find a dead bird, mouse, or mole and bury it. I would get my little paint set out, paint their headstones, and have a funeral. And that was a sense of play. But I was a kid. I didn't know what death meant, but I knew you were supposed to be sad and all these things. So, revisiting that whole concept of me at play as a child with these pieces I made in graduate school informed everything about life.

That snake is now put on necklaces, but people don't necessarily know it's a dead snake I found on a run. It's like a beautiful, sinuous S-shape. I'll layer (the image) with flowers and sometimes sneak in a little fly. So, the flies, you know, the reality of death. The smell attracts the flies, and they come in after. And they are, you know, the cycle of life. They are feeding on death. And so, I'll put these little symbols in. Sometimes, if something strikes the right person, I'll tell them about this stuff. But usually, I keep it really light.

I possibly could do more of that because, you know, I'll talk to my students here. Many of them are wrapping it up, and I'm like, 'Okay, rose quartz brings love into your life and happiness.' I'll tell them that these things do have hidden meanings. I haven't really thought about that in my work. It truly (comes down to the material) the laser likes to work with. So, I just figured out it likes coral. So, I've been buying some coral and playing with that, and so much testing is involved with each gem. Lapis is something that's been working, and turquoise works quite well. But even different chunks of lapis don't work well. If it has too many pyrite inclusions, the design won't show up.

So (I spend) hours with my settings because you need power, speed, and PPI (points per inch). So, I'll lower the power a little bit if it blasts too much of the surface. There's a lot of technical boringness that I'm doing behind the scenes for hours. Like, a stupid amount of time. Right now, I'm working with green onyx and really trying to figure that out. But eventually, I would like to think a little bit more (about) the history and symbolism of the stones, too, because obviously, that's the cool part.

I'm into the green onyx. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. It may (take) no mark. Sometimes it does (work), and the marks are so crisp. So, it's a little bit more of an enigma at the moment. The black onyx is sometimes awesome, sometimes not. I figured out (other) chalcedony, even though (it has) such a good low price and all these fun colors, won't work no matter what. Big bummer for me.

I've found that quartz works for me, so that's a little avenue I plan to investigate this summer. But yeah, it's like, I love turquoise. That I know works well. It's the soft ones, right? I feel like the Mohs hardness (the laser can cut) is 5 to 6. I bought some synthetic opal when I was in Tucson. And I haven't done it yet. I still think the fake opal is really precious. I'm, like, 'Ooh, I don't want to.' Like, I don't want to mess it up.

I want to say one thing about how I'm keeping my work for myself. It's so part of the privilege of being a teacher. Like, there's so much privilege when you can make jewelry in general. But the fact that I don't have to make my jewelry to have income (gives me) the luxury of just doing whatever when I want it. So, I want to acknowledge an immense amount of privilege in jewelry making, especially the jewelry I'm making. That I'm allowed to do so. Yeah. So, I can just do whatever I want, and I don't care if it sells. And in fact, I'll keep all of it for myself because I make things I want to wear. I always just try to remember that I get to make things I love and share them, and people enjoy it. So that's awesome.

My Etsy store is now closed. Now I sell my work in some galleries in the US that represent me. So I have galleries in Texas, Chicago, and here in Boston. I don't have the bandwidth to make more. And actually, I feel really bad because when MAD ended, I told everybody I'd have tons of stuff to send them. And they're all like, 'We need more things.' And I was like, 'I just don't have time to make more things.' But again, that's the luxury. I'm not trying to (live) off my jewelry. It's just like a bonus fun extra side hustle.

So (they) found my work, and I'm super honored to be included, because it's once in a lifetime to go to the Museum of Art and Design (MAD). It's the only museum in the United States with a permanent collection of contemporary art jewelry on display. (At) the MFA here in Boston, we have art jewelry collections, but it's all, like, antique jewelry and specifically contemporary jewelry. So, (the MAD) is a special museum to me.

Next semester, I'll have a bunch of metals. I'll teach some enameling, have enameling kilns, and then a casting burnout kiln. Basically, every piece of equipment they would have at (Mass College of Art in Boston), we have equipment just as good here.

I tell the kids: One, it's dangerous. Not many schools want to have torches (on their premises). Two, it's expensive to fund, especially with (the cost of) copper and brass skyrocketing. I do buy silver for them. The way it works is if they use silver, they weigh it and pay me for what they take home. It's a great opportunity for them to try stuff without (risk). If they melt it into a ball, who cares? I'll save it for when we do casting. So, it's like a low-risk, try-all-this-cool-stuff-out (activity). And then they're all amazed.

Usually, when they can make a ring in silver, they put it on the scale, and they're like, 'Oh yeah, skinny little stack ring this big cost you $0.80.' I'm like, 'How much would you (pay for that) in a store?' And they're like, 'At least $20.' You can hook some kids with that awesome magic of making your own things.

So, the first half of the semester is technical skills, like learning to saw, rivet, and file. We're going to learn what sanding is. We're going to talk about craftsmanship, and then we're going to learn soldering. And then, you're going to make a ring. How do you make it fit your finger? So we do all of that.

They're for beginners, my favorite people to teach. I want to hook people and make them feel like they can do it and encourage them. It's intimidating, I think, but it shouldn't be. It should be very accessible and fun, like a relief and a release for people. Not many people have a skill they can fall into and decompress with. I don't know. I think (you're) lucky to (have that).

It was a fun way to teach. Like, this is what flux is, this is what solder is, this is how you hold the torch, this is what the torch is doing when the flux turns this color.