Finding her roots in jewelry

Finding her roots in jewelry
Chester Daily Local Online, PA

Ree Gallagher spends most of her days haloed by her studio lights as she weaves and spins bright-colored aluminum, cuts and welds sterling silver and gold, and loops strings of precious stones and fresh water pearls.
The Chadds Ford resident sees each of her pieces as a sculpture, a piece of art she has created by hand from her own designs.
Historically, Gallagher explained, jewelry has been worn to attract the attention of others into one‘s space. Her earrings, bracelets, necklaces and pendants are designed to do just that.

Some of her lines are for everyday and are priced accordingly. Her custom, one-of-a-kind pieces are higher-end. Another line she described as ”party girl“ jewelry, but without such a glitzy price.
Seven years out of art school, Gallagher is selling jewelry in galleries and boutiques as far afield as California.
She comes home from wholesale jewelry shows with stacks of orders and goes through her inventory when she sells at retail shows. When she is not working round the clock to fill all those orders, her lines are evolving and expanding. Her studio doubles as a showroom where her fans can shop.
A self-described teenage ”jewelry junkie,“ she worked after school while attending Kennett High School to make money to buy jewelry. She went on to be a painting and fine arts major at St. Lawrence University.
It wasn‘t until she went to Florence, Italy, for a semester that she took a jewelry class and got hooked.
Soon after college Gallagher was doing graphic arts and apprenticing for a local jewelry artist when she was the victim of a drunken-driving accident. It led her to question her ambitions.
She realized jewelry was what she loved, but she needed more training to make it a career.

Within six months she was enrolled in the Savannah College of Art and Design. She earned her master‘s of fine arts degree in metals and jewelry in 2000.
After moving to New York City, working for a textile designer and squeezing in her own jewelry making on the side, she became frustrated. She gave herself an assignment, a sort of ultimatum to test if she could actually pull off a career in jewelry. She had a week to design and create a line of jewelry without spending a cent on new materials and then find a buyer.
She weaseled cool vintage scrap fabric from her fashion contacts and, with those, crafted what she now refers to as her ”rock ‘n‘ roll“ line and managed to show a sampling of her work to a buyer for the Urban Outfitters stores.
Shortly thereafter she got an order, a huge order that would send her first official line of jewelry nationwide.
Although that line was a far cry from the high concept, fine art jewelry she now creates, it did teach her about production, costs, pricing and how to be in the marketplace.
But mainstream was not where she wanted to be.
Needing ”some perspective,“ Gallagher moved back to Chadds Ford. ”I wanted to give my education a chance and try to make a go of it.“
She found studio and gallery space at the Ponds of Woodward, next to the barn where she came as a child with her mother to buy produce from the Woodward brothers. Every year since, her body of work has grown and evolved.
The foundation of Gallagher‘s jewelry line is the series of ”Nests“ and ”Spirals.“
She weaves and spins single, continuous strands of brightly colored aluminum wire into nests, hollow balls and spirals, sometimes adding silver beads or Swarovski crystals.
Her ”Moonrock“ series of earrings, necklaces, clasps and rings utilizes sterling silver and gold. ”Petals“ are links of flower petal-shaped links of silver and gold in necklaces and bracelets. Her ”Orbit“ linked jewelry, she said, ”is so not like manufactured jewelry. Each link is different. Nothing is perfect.“
— On the Web: www.reegallagher.com.