Steven Manchini, Lapidary Artist & Jewelry Designer, Has An Eye for Quality, A Drive To Keep Learning, & Has Fun Along The Way

"I started making jewelry about 10 years ago, I'm 30 now, so I started around 19. A friend of mine, I had no idea that I would be led down the jewelry path. I don't have any family that's really ever done jewelry. I have some family that maybe have done some art stuff, but nothing really as a full-time job always as a hobby. A friend of mine brought home a wire-wrapped piece of jewelry from a music festival when I was 19. I was working full-time at the time and I was really excited to see it because I was I wanted to go back to school for biology. I was really, you know, interested in that realm of things that was kind of the path that I was on like are I'm gonna work a little bit, go back to school, learn more about biology and maybe become a doctor or something at some point. You know, I wasn't really sure what to do. But my friend brought home a piece of wire-wrapped jewelry look like an anatomical heart, which I thought was really cool. It got me really interested in the biology stuff and I was like Oh, where did you get this? He's like, I brought it home from a festival. And then I was like, Where can I get one? Because I also want one of these. And he's like, Oh, well, you can't. And I was like, Oh, well, now that's a challenge. I have to figure out either if I can get one or I decided just to start making them. So one day when I was at work, I left at the end of the day, I actually think I left a little early that day because I just didn't want to be there. I ended up getting some rocks and some wire at Michael's and a little stone store local to Milford, New Hampshire and ended up just starting to wire up. It was really, you know, something I was doing in my spare time. As I started doing it more and looking more online, I wasn't really able to find a lot of people doing it. But I found a couple of really cool, interesting styles, and started just trying to mimic it and figure out how to do these very interesting styles, wire wrapping. Then people started buying them. And I was like, Oh, I could, I can sell these. Then I started just posting online pretty consistently on like Facebook at the time. And then yeah, they kind of spiraled," said Steven Manchini, lapidary artist  and jewelry designer.

Steven continued to refine his craft once he started getting to wire wrapping. He learned from others and took classes as well. He also continues to discover more of his style through new techniques and gems and minerals he has never worked with before.

"Something that's inspired me throughout my time of, I guess making jewelry is the visual arts community. There's a lot of psychedelic art, I've definitely been inspired by the first half of me making jewelry was me traveling to different music festivals, and meeting people in person with me just, I didn't really like to do vending booths a lot of the time because I don't really like to stay in one place. When I have my jewelry, I like to meet and connect with people. So I'd be walking all over these different festivals just yelling, hey, I have shiny rocks, wants to look at them. People would come to my case and be like, Oh, these are really cool. I made a decent living that way during like the summers and stuff. Then during Christmas and stuff, obviously the holiday season is great. But I really enjoyed progressing in, you know, I, I just get really passionate about the jewelry and where it comes from and the people that inspired me. Also, a lot of my friends have inspired me throughout the years, like all these different artists that make jewelry that I've been able to connect with online, and now have met in person just by traveling to now jewelry events, rather than festivals. And, traveling to those different jewelry events, I've been able to meet like Matt Fisher or Matt Tuggle, who are now friends of mine and are fantastic artists by who I'm also inspired. There's just been a lot of different bits of inspiration. Like I know, one thing I'm also really inspired by is just the process of the art, I don't usually tend to look for inspiration and everything, I just try to find some inspiration in the process as well, especially in those days where maybe I don't want to be sitting at the bench. And I'm like, but I have to get this project done. So I started a little bit and then I find the groove and the vibe again. That allows me to create, but I guess as far as my style is, it would be more like a visual artist's style. It's kind of hard for me to describe, I'm not really sure," said Steven.

Tune in to learn more about Steven's maker journey and how he crafted his piece for the Big Reveal project.

Please visit Steven's website.

To see Steven’s final piece follow the Makers of the USA on Instagram and Facebook and Maine Mineral & Gem Museum on Instagram and Facebook as well as the images will be posted on both of those social media platforms.

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