ARTIST STATEMENT

In my studio, I dance with fire. Glass beads and components, soldered and fused metals, and colorful enamels, are all transformed under my torch. As the flame is fed with fuel and oxygen, creating my art feeds the fire in my soul.

I am a lampworker, melting and forming glass into my own beads and discs and cabochons. I am a metalsmith, constructing settings for those glass objects along with gemstones, sea glass, sea shells, and other found objects I’ve picked up along the way. And I am a mosaicist, arranging tiny bits and pieces and scraps together to form cuffs or pendants or earrings or ring bands that look dimensional, composed yet eclectic, at once ancient and brand new.

BIOGRAPHY

Amy Nemirow has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and a 30 year career in human services, advocating for people with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism who also have Mental Health struggles. She is also a Philadelphia-area jewelry artist with over 20 years’ experience. Beginning with stringing glass beads and wirework, she soon learned lampworking and created jewelry to set her handmade glass pieces. Her lifelong love of the ocean and beachcombing for sea glass and shells sparked her desire to capture the warmth of childhood memories in wearable keepsakes.

Amy’s tiling skills, acquired while fixing up an old house, yielded a quirky backsplash design featuring Mexican Talavera tile and glass pieces. This also led to a few improvised mosaic mirror and picture frames using the broken and leftover tiles.

Not long after that, Amy discovered Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, Isaiah Zagar’s astonishing mosaic art space on South Street. In 2008 Amy and her husband Joe held their wedding ceremony at PMG, only the 3rd couple to do so. (One of the other two was Isaiah and his wife Julia renewing their vows.) Truly an enchanting experience. A few years later, Amy participated in a weekend workshop with Isaiah and his team, installing a mosaic mural on a wall outside a church in South Philadelphia.

Isaiah’s glittering technique, freeform designs, intuitive process, and philosophy of repurposing materials and limiting waste, inspired Amy to explore those themes in her jewelry work. Her Scrappy Collection incorporates bits of silver and wire left over from other projects, transforming otherwise discarded materials into compositions that create tiny worlds of interconnected details, always with a sparkle of glass, or a flash of cubic zirconia, to add color and catch the eye.

Hallmarks of Amy Nemirow Jewelry Designs include upcycled found objects; manmade materials like seaglass, rosarita and fordite; crystal and lampwork glass talismans; and the spiral motif reflecting nature and eternity.

Amy’s jewelry designs have been showcased in various venues:

juried craft shows, including the Haddonfield Craft and Fine Art Festival in Haddonfield, NJ, and the Fine Arts and Crafts Festival in Media, PA
private trunk shows and house parties.
Glass beads featured in a student exhibit at the Craft Gallery at Sherman Mills in Philadelphia, PA, and in a gallery exhibit called “Once Upon a Bead,” at the Catskill Mountain Foundation Fine Craft and Art Gallery in Hunter, NY.
neighborhood coffee shop in Philadelphia
Gift Shop at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, PA.

Current listings can be found in her web shop at www.amynemirow.com

Amy’s tag line is, “Feed the Fire,” because making jewelry ignites her passion and feeds the fire in her soul.