For Trisa Lovejoy of Silver Gypsy, pulling stones, sitting with them and mixing the shapes and colors to find the right fit is how she begins the process of creating her unique jewelry pieces. After the stone selection, Lovejoy cuts wire and begins to wrap the stone with scalloped bezel wire using flat nose pliers to make perfect bends to fit the stone’s exact shape.
Silver Gypsy
While growing up in Bend, Trisa Lovejoy’s mother brought her to natural rock shows. “It was something fun that my mom liked to do and it sparked my interest in rocks, gems and minerals and creating art with something that's natural,” she says.
Trisa comes from a highly creative family. Her grandmother was a master gardener, her grandfather painted cars, her father was a creative builder, her mother an experienced florist and her brother has a degree in art. “For me, using natural elements in my art was a no-brainer. I just gravitated towards it.”
As an adult and single mom, Trisa had to put art on the back burner for over 20 years and work as a hair stylist to support her daughter. Three years ago, her passion for artistry became more of a priority. “I decided that I was going to do something that makes me and other people happy,” remarks Lovejoy. Her jewelry brand, Silver Gypsy, does just that.
“I coined the name a few years ago. I started doing DNA research on where my family was from and they were kind of gypsies; it stuck,” she says.
What also motivated her to dive deeper into jewelry making were the comments she would hear about her unique jewelry, along with requests for her to make something special for others. She incorporates everything from turquoise and quartz, to aquamarine, jasper and amethyst into her pieces.
The metals she uses are mainly silver-focused, but she also works with gold, copper and brass for accents. She uses her silversmithing talents to do repairs for clients, too.
For design inspiration, she again turns to nature. “I’ll walk by a river and look at patterns and how things are balanced or imbalanced in the natural world. I'm very analytical, so when I'm looking at something, I'm really looking at how it's structured and how and why it works. I try to bring that into my jewelry.”
Check out Silver Gypsy jewelry on Etsy, at many local festivals around town and on Instagram @silver_gypsy1. Her most popular pieces are the simple ones that may take her a day to make, but she would like to find a market for her favorites too, which in her words are “big, funky, artsy and cool.” These can take a week or more to create and she wants to find the right clientele to show them off and love them.
“You can wear my pieces either daily or when you're out skiing or hiking to connect you into that natural balance or imbalance in nature,” offers Lovejoy.
@silver_gypsy1