BIO

Britta Lynn Kauppila is a jewelry designer and metalsmith living in Duluth, MN with a show-space studio in the Arts District of NE Minneapolis. All designs are handmade with fire and hammer. She loves the relationship between the maker and the materials, where human hands manipulate and shape metal to become something very soft, delicate, but substantial. Britta graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth with a Bachelors in Art and concentrated in Jewelry and Metals. She worked as a goldsmith and design consultant for local Minneapolis design gallery where she honed her skills with hand fabrication and stone setting.

Britta continues to work in new materials and mediums to grow technically and conceptually. She creates all her designs in her Duluth workshop where she is open by appointment and travels to hold monthly events at her studio in the Northrup King Building in NE Minneapolis. When Britta is not making jewelry she is playing in the woods and lakes of Minnesota with her little family.

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my metalwork I am very interested in texture. Nature provides a wonderful example of how different value, form, line, and texture combine to produce movement, rhythm, and harmony. Asymmetrical figures produce symmetrical forms as symmetrical patterns also breed asymmetrical themes. I am drawn to the contradiction of the hard, immovable, structural metal mimicking the most delicate and soft pieces of nature.

I appreciate the historical aspect of jewelry and I love to work in ancient techniques and antique gems such as Keum Boo, granulation, and rose cut gems. There is a close relationship with the piece of jewelry and the handmade process. I always contemplate the movement of the jewelry and how it interacts with the body. I am fascinated how the body and jewelry move as one or as opposite powers and create an ambience and attitude- all which make jewelry an extension of our personal presentation.

- Britta Kauppila