Sweet Jewelry
SLIPPERY ROCK — Chelsey Werner, a senior at Slippery Rock University, cooks up delicious jewelry mixing her passion and artistic skills with a dash of medical motivation.
Werner, a former Adams Township resident, said the doughnut earrings and the cupcake swirl bracelet, just like every other piece in her collection, are representations of the foods she can no longer eat.
“I'm gluten intolerant,” she said.
Werner will display her collection of sweets-themed jewelry at an exhibition, “If You Can't Eat It, Wear It,” from 1 to 2 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays beginning Nov. 26 and running to Dec. 6 at the Student Government Association Student Art Gallery in Room 204 in the student union on the SRU campus.
The exhibition has a grand opening from 5 to 7 p.m. Nov. 28. The public reception is free, and light beverages will be offered alongside gluten-free food.
Werner said she found out about her gluten intolerance about two years into her college education, but she had been experiencing symptoms for years before they became unbearable.
“I got really sick over the span of six months,” she said.
Her mother Cindy Werner of Greenville said life became harder for her daughter after the diagnosis.
“It was all stomach problems,” Cindy Werner said. “She never was gluten free as a child.”
Cindy Werner said her daughter ate without restriction as a child and that can make it hard to avoid or cut favored items from her diet.
“Still she always craved the breads and the cakes because that's what she ate when she was growing up. She knows what it tastes like,” Cindy Werner said. “If we're on the go, we can drop into McDonald's. She can't do that.”
Cindy Werner said her daughter has made healthy choices based on the advice of her doctors. She said sometimes it is fun to find new places with the best gluten-free options.
“When you (college students) come home, you want parents to take you out somewhere to eat,” she said. “She loves pizza, and we're always on the hunt for people to make good gluten-free pizza.”
Cindy Werner said Chelsey demonstrated talent in the arts from an early age. She said her daughter enjoyed telling stories, playing music and creating with her hands.
“She kind of had her hands in a little bit of everything artistically,” she said.
Cindy Werner said she is proud of her daughter for finding passion in her work and bringing something personal to her art.
“I love all of her stuff,” she said. “I can't wait to see the one necklace with all the sprinkles completely done.”
Chelsey Werner said she used a range of techniques in her exhibited pieces.
“I focus on things people can actually wear. I like the engaging quality of wearable art,” she said. “You kind of become part of the piece rather than just looking at it.”
Werner said metalsmithing has allowed her to express her frustration in a fun way while drawing on good memories of a time when eating a doughnut didn't make her feel sick.“I missed a lot of these things, like especially doughnuts and cupcakes and toast,” she said. “Me being able to represent those in a beautiful and classy way is really a way to reclaim those types of sensations that I used to have before.”Sean MacMillan, a professor of metalsmithing at SRU, said Werner has grown into a true professional.“She's been my student consistently since she started here,” MacMillan said. “I think she's very talented. Her show is really going above and beyond what we ask our students to do.”MacMillan said Werner will have to complete another gallery next semester as a senior project.He said this gallery serves as great practice for that project.“The bachelor of fine arts program's capstone course is to put together a cohesive body of work and exhibit it in our (the Martha Gault Art Gallery) gallery,” he said. “She's essentially doing all that on her own.”MacMillan said he also is impressed with the range of techniques on display through Werner's pieces.“She's got these forms that look like glazed frosting and doughnuts,” MacMillan said. “It's pretty refreshing as a professor to see all this work laid out on the table and see the range of skills and techniques she's learned over the years.”MacMillan said he expects Werner to find success beyond college.“Over the years, working with Chelsey, I've been continually impressed by her professionalism,” he said. “She definitely takes this stuff seriously. She puts the time and the energy in to see these things come to fruition.”Werner said she can see being a small-business owner in her future. She said many of the jewelers she looks up to are successful Pennsylvanians who run small businesses for themselves.“I think passion is something that is really necessary in anything that you do. It's going to be a lifelong career,” she said.Werner said loving what you do makes the daily grind worth it and the journey worth every ounce of sweat, pain and hardship faced along the way.“I sit at that bench for so many hours, and I still enjoy it,” she said.
