Shannon Lucas
Asheville, NC | Exhibiting Since 2025
In my former career as a research librarian, I explored meaning primarily via words and text. At a summer jewelry workshop at Penland School of Crafts, however, I discovered the great joy of engaging my imagination, and communicating ideas using form and gesture. Compelled to explore this new mode of expression more deeply, I left my job and enrolled in the two-year intensive Professional Craft Program at Haywood Community College, from which I graduated in June of 2022 with a degree in metals/jewelry. Working with metal, semi-precious stones, enamel, glass, felted wool, natural and other found objects, I create bold, playful pieces of art jewelry to explore and express evocative subjects in the natural world and the imagination. My work is designed to engage the senses, delight the wearer, and foster curiosity and conversation. Specific inspirations include forms I encounter when snorkeling around coral reefs, irregular textures and patterns, the nature illustrations of Ernst Haeckel, the Codex Seraphinianus, and the work of many mid-century modernist artists and jewelry makers.