Student Spotlight: Jacqueline Galusha

Jacqueline Galusha commutes from one end of the state to the other for back-to-back classes at Metalwerx, and stays in the Boston area with friends for weekend workshops. She lives with her husband on his family’s generations-old 400-acre Berkshire dairy farm in Williamstown, a beautiful expanse of rolling hills, pasture and woods with views into neighboring Vermont.

Forged bracelets

Jacqueline took her first metalworking class — in casting, taught by James Kennedy — at IS183, a non-profit community arts school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, only three years ago. She was captivated by the properties and beauty of molten silver and, following her newly-inspired creative soul, set up a studio in an out-building on the farm. She collected tools and equipment mostly from online sources, and began casting.

Jacqueline was born in Peru to a mother who was French and an American father (who met in Venezuela, of course!) Her family lived in Antwerp, Belgium when she was young, and eventually returned to her father’s native land, and settled in Boston and lived there for 15 years. Jacqueline graduated from the University of Massachusetts, and, in recent years spent several years teaching elementary school in France, where her sister owned a restaurant.

Leaf bracelet

Jacqueline soon established a line of simple, elegant jewelry based on vacuum castings of the leaves of native Berkshire trees. She had had an early career in sales — selling copiers in Boston, and then representing the printing company Graphique de France — and attributes some of her success in selling her line of jewelry to the store at the Clark Institute of Art Museum to the savvy of her early sales career. The museum asked her to supplement her line with jewelry cast from leaves of the willow trees on the grounds of the museum, and Jacqueline’s jewelry is now a regular feature in the museum’s store, as well as at the Williams College Museum Shop.

Willow collar

At Metalwerx, Jacqueline is now exploring the possibilities of metalsmithing beyond casting, currently enrolled in Directed Open Studio with David Baird, and Soldering Solutions with Joy Raskin. Just since January, besides her weekly classes, Jacqueline has taken five workshops, and is enrolled in Three Rings in Three Days with John Cogswell and lapidary workshops with Michael Boyd. Right now she is making beautiful bracelets with bezel-set sea glass, and we can’t wait to see what she will create next!

See more of Jacqueline’s work on her website – http://www.wanderlustjewelrydesign.com/.

Sea glass bracelet