Creative Work

Helynne Van Petten

Growing STEMs

Growing STEMs explores the constant influence of nature on everyday life. From a young age, being outside and in nature has always held an important place in my heart. From cabin camping along the Shenandoah River twice per year since I was born to traveling across the east coast in a travel trailer, I love every minute that I get to embrace the outdoors. However, I have also placed STEM influences into this work. My earring piece showcases test tubes among the leaves, my pendant piece was made to resemble a petri dish, and my ring piece was made to resemble the helical shape of DNA. While some of these details are subtle, they are still representations of prominent features of my life as a Bioengineer. 

Toby Liu

Beauty of Death

These clay jewelry pieces are meant to symbolize death and bring to light how beautiful the circle of life is.  Life and nature are often praised for their beauty, but death is often overlooked due to the fear and uncertainty surrounding it.  These pieces are meant to show the world that death, too, is just as beautiful as life.  Without death, our lives would have no meaning to it.  The fact that our lives are short and fragile makes them worth so much more than if we could all live forever. 

Jenita Shrestha

A Tribute To Buwa

"Buwa," meaning "Father" in Nepali, was what we called my late grandfather. Buwa was a culmination of hard work, stories, strength, and love. A steady presence I thought I would always have. He passed in May last year, but I carry him with me through this jewlery. The earrings are a representation of his skill in card games, the necklace honors his devotion to the Brahma Kumaris religion, and the ring captures his essence of Nepal. Each piece is a tribute to him and a way to keep his memory close. 

Morgan Eisenberg

Pocket Full of Whimsy 

This work romanticizes the nature around us and brings an appreciation to the smaller things in life. It includes the earth (amethyst earrings), flora (mushroom necklace), and fauna (frog ring). There is no grand call to action. It is simply important to recognize things we like and work to protect them. 

Kendra Warmuth

Summer Nostalgia 

These pieces recreate colorful Summer plants through an exaggerated, cartoonish lens, creating a jewelry set

that emphasizes the cheerful feeling of the warmer months. Each piece of jewelry represents a different aspect of summer nostalgia: depicting vibrant tropical leaves, the hot sun, and sweet treats like watermelon. With these pieces I hope to evoke this feeling of nostalgia and bring the viewer back to when they were younger, playing in the sun among friends. 

Grace Hall

Trapped In (Y)our Choices

 These works represent the explicit dangers of technology on this generation of students. The earrings represent the choices of being on screens when the student should be working on schoolwork, and as consequence they receive failing grades. The necklace pendent shows a strained, wide-eye, with the letters “TV” on the sides. It acknowledges how focused one becomes on a screen and shuts out the rest of the world. It represents binge-watching and the effects it has both physically and mentally, headaches from eye strain, and addiction for overconsumption. Lastly, the ring is made to look like a rope, symbolizing the fact that we have this power at our fingertips, but we keep tightening that rope the longer we scroll or stay attached to our screens. 

Joanne Park

The Other Side of Me

The theme that I chose is the Korean side of my life through clay. I wanted to show the Korean culture that I still regularly indulge in that isn't very mainstream or popular. While I am an American, and there are many things about American culture that I love, there is also a lot of my cultural heritage that I frequently interact with even though its origin is on the other side of the globe. So in my pieces, I chose to create earrings that contain traditional fruits I eat every year: persimmons, oriental melons, honey apples, and mountain grapes. I also chose to make a norigae necklace. Norigaes are charms usually made of silk and precious jewels people wear on their traditional clothes, and because I wear my traditional clothes every year during the lunar new year, I chose it for the pendant. And then I finally decided to make a flower ring of the Rose of Sharon, which is their national flower. 

Julie Kim

Endless Depths

This project includes a jewelry set containing earrings, a pendant, and a ring meant to connect both the sea and space as symbols of the vast and endless knowledge and possibilities available to humanity. Both the depths of the sea and space hold knowledge unknown to mankind, so close to us yet so far intellectually and technologically. All three pieces take this theme and interpret them differently, using imagery from the two zones to represent the idea of unattainable knowledge. 

Linnea Warduck

Our Forgotten Language

My jewelry set explores the theme of nature appreciation, inspired by my deep personal connection to the plant world. Growing up with a botanist father, I was constantly surrounded by greenery, gardens, greenhouses, forests, and I came to understand how nature speaks its own language of beauty, resilience, and growth. With each piece, I aim to remind viewers to slow down and notice the small, often overlooked wonders of the natural world. My work honors both the organic forms of plants and the emotional roots they represent in my life. This set is a tribute to my father, to the earth, and to the quiet strength of growing things.