Honey Mushroom Necklace by BMF Jewelry
Mushrooms: Little weirdos of the forest floor.
The hand-cut pendant is approximately 1/2" tall x 3/4" wide. Comes on a sterling silver chain with handmade clasp. Length is adjustable from 16.5" - 20".
Handmade by Brittany Foster of BMF Jewelry in Ely, Minnesota.
"Making things more complicated, one broken saw blade at a time."
With innumerable influences, including cephalopods, industrial debris, and munitions, Brittany Foster makes things because she has always made things. As a youngster she was drawn to doing things with her hands. Jewelry seemed mysterious, which led her to wonder how people could possibly create such pieces with simple, manual tools. When she discovered there were also hammers and fire involved, it sealed the deal.
Having once been told that the human eye can detect a wave in a line to 0.03", Foster took it as a challenge. She uses a standard jeweler's saw to cut all of her squiggly lines by hand. Her work is not fueled by electricity, but, much like Popeye, by spinach and beer. She also deploys the classic "hit it with a hammer" technique on her wrought pieces, which balances well with the meticulous work of cutting intricate curlicues.
After taking community college courses in jewelry making, Foster went to the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating with honors in 2002. She then went on to set up an increasingly complicated shop, which now includes a small personal jungle. She has always worked as an independent jeweler with her own studio, developing her unique style through the time-honored method of trial and error.
I am a one woman shop from the Northwoods of Minnesota. After over a decade of work in Minneapolis and countless bespoke wedding pieces, I moved to the North Woods to find inspiration and connection between metal and nature. For ten years I have sought and gathered designs that bring my unique skills and perspective and the forest together. This work is the result.
Find more of Brittany's work here.
