about

You want to know about me?

Okay, I’ll start with a few of my favorite things: (And yes, The Sound of Music happens to be one of them.)

• The smell of low tide. I grew up with it, and think it’s second to none. Fragrant blossoms can take a seat, and let drying seaweed and rotting shellfish scent the air. It’s entirely possible that I’m just a product of growing up on Boston Hahbah, in it’s 1980′s polluted heyday, but still. I love it.

• Snowy nights. They’re blissful, with their surprising brightness and even more notable silence. They make me want rehash my mountaineering days, but I don’t, because these days I’m happier just marveling at the sparkly blanket of undisturbed snow. But get me to a rock wall (hold the ice, please) and I’ll climb that sucker with gusto.

•The clever things my daughters do that I wish I had thought of. Like making a leash for the chickens and taking them for walks (talk about a conversation starter). Or turning our jar of flour into Flour Beach. They are a constant motivation for me to keep a fresh perspective on my surroundings. My crafty kiddos are also my creative heroes.

• Hands. I don’t know what it is, but I have a thing for hands. Rough hands that are put to good use. Strong hands. I’m talking about hands that do life’s work, and show the wear and tear to prove it. I love putting my own hands to work, too, to feel and manipulate and create. With some metal in my hands, I will revel in its resistance when I bend it, and the give when I hammer it. I will shape it, file it, pierce it, and solder it, and make it into something striking. Yes I will.

Wait. You want to know about how I came around to have a jewelry biz? Fair enough. It goes something like this:

•BFA in Fine Art, because I never wanted to be anything but an artist
•A few graphic design jobs, while I dreamed of making a living selling my own art, that I made with my own hands, not a computer.
•Home with babies, because I could do nothing else but ooh and ahh over my kids for a while there
•Metals classes to save my sanity, because the aforementioned oohing and ahhing eventually got old, much to my surprise
•AG Ambroult was born. Now I regularly send my creations out into the big, wide world, and as a bonus, I get to play with silver, fire, and tools all day

You can have a peek in to the messiness of parts of that journey here.

You’re still reading? And you want to know more about my jewelry and my studio? I see.

•My studio is small and cold, but has a ridiculous amount of tools in it, which makes me all warm and fuzzy inside (lack of heat be damned!). Some of my tools are newer, some are antique, and I keep many of them in an old machinist’s chest that I might have a crush on. I haven’t mentioned how much I love tools yet, have I? Tools and hands. Yup.

•I use traditional metalsmithing techniques of fabrication and casting, but I am always learning new techniques. (which means I am always in need of more tools! It’s win-win.)

•There’s just something about starting with raw materials (like silver sheet and wire) and transforming it into pretty, wearable objects, that keeps me happily ensconced in the world of metalsmithing. It bridges the industrial world with the art world, and that is so interesting to me.

•My inspirations are many and random. Staring with Mother Nature (Yawn. Me and everybody else, right? But she is just. so. creative. And prolific.), but I also hatch many ideas from things like conversations, movies, books, my super-clever kids (I’m not biased or anything), dreams, other artists, and my husband’s visionary mind.

•My jewelry is made with the goal of avoiding pretentiousness. No, friends, this is not jewelry destined for a velvet-lined box on top of the dresser. There will be no time for that, because AG Ambroult pieces are too busy being worn, shown off, and admired.