By Lizzy Scully
Marian Stonacek grew up in a family of six self-reliant girls (and her father), all of whom knitted, crocheted, and were incredibly crafty. After all, growing up on a farm in Berthoud, CO, meant all family members used their hands a lot.
“If we were self sufficient, we could fix the tractor, grow the garden, can food, and take care of every day stuff,” Stonacek explains. She credits that self-reliance as honing her strong work ethic and never-ending desire to use her hands. It was only natural, she says, that she eventually developed a deep love for arts and crafts. Stonacek makes pottery and colorful jewelry of all kinds, from strung beaded necklaces to copper and jade earrings, to her favorite new endeavor, enamel pendants. And now, after having raised two children and worked at various jobs that she loved but wasn’t necessarily passionate about, Stonacek is ready to take her life in a new direction.
“My goal is to spend more time in my studio and make more of my income from jewelry,” she says of her Longmont-based art, jewelry, and pottery workshop. She also has a brand new website, www.CopperCircleDesign.com.
Stonacek started working with yarn and beads earlier than she can remember, but it was at the University of Colorado where her artistry blossomed. “I took lots of pottery classes; I was a potter at heart,” she said. But after graduating with a degree in biology and chemistry, she started apprenticing with master silversmith Camille Randell, who now teaches at Front Range Community College.
“She’s an awesome craftsperson,” says Stonacek of her role model. “She taught me soldering, stone setting, and stone cutting, and she had me do a lot of technical projects just so I had all my chops. I spent a lot of time with her.”
Taking what she learned from Randell and the potters, Stonacek developed her own specialty designing and making enamel pendants and earrings on copper. Artists make enamels by fusing special powdered glass to metals with heat. Stonacek’s experience with ceramics prepared her for this next endeavor.
“Enamel connects my jewelry to my pottery,” she says. “I started doing enamel because I do so much pottery, and I totally understand what it means to get color fusing on metal. Most people get a little bit scared of a kiln that’s at 1800 degrees, but that whole dynamic process just makes perfect sense to me. I like to melt things. I like a lot of fire. I like heat.”
Furthermore, Stonacek loves the idea of the base material interacting with the surface. “The beauty of that is there’s an interaction between the metal and the glass because they are fusing. It’s a very organic process. When you’re looking through the surface, you are looking all the way to the metal. There is something lovely and aesthetic about a surface that is interactive like that.”
Stonacek’s favorite component of her enamels is the color she creates. “During the Bush administration, I was so embroiled in and devastated by what was happening to this country,” she says. “I woke up one morning and said I really need to make some bright, dynamic jewelry. I felt like I needed to bring something happy and light into the world. Enamel always feels so much more playful and light [compared to silver]. It also wasn’t such a big financial commitment. Copper is cheap. All I had to do was turn my kiln on. So now I have these little, joyful pieces that aren’t such a huge investment. It created more freedom for to me to explore and not be so serious.”
It also allowed her to make mistakes. Camille Randall tried to teach Stonacek how to draw diagrams and write out each step she needed to take prior to making a piece of silver jewelry. But Stonacek says that progression wasn’t natural for her.
“I’m a process person,” she explains. “If I sit down to do one thing, it leads to another and another. It’s an organic progression. I’ll start with pounding a rod of metal, and then suddenly I’m drilling holes in it, and it becomes completely different from what I started with. My disasters are my lessons. I have to make those mistakes—drill through something, break the edge off, push it over the side, and then start over.”
And when she’s doing that, she is her happiest and most grounded. She says she gets “lost in time and space” when she is in her favorite place—her workshop.
“I’m very centered and in the moment,” she says. “It’s easy in this life to think about our future, think about our past, and forget to be right now. We forget to create our moments, and have breath in our moments. The studio allows me to get lost in that passionate place and come to that moment. And that is why I enjoy being there.”
You can find Stonacek’s jewelry locally at Experience Boutique downtown or most summer weekends at the market on Main Street. For more information, please visit her website at www.CopperCircleDesign.com.
Lizzy Scully builds websites, does PR, and writing for small businesses. For more info, visit her website www.MergeThisMedia.com.
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