Master Metalsmith: Rachelle Thiewes – Hued

Rachelle Thiewes is an artist based in the Chihuahuan desert of West Texas, where she creates jewelry that is designed to engage and challenge the wearer, making them an active participant, an initiator of sounds and body rhythms.  Light, movement, sound, order and chaos are integral elements of her work.   

Thiewes has been living in the El Paso area for close to forty years, and her time there has inspired much of her work. The mountainous desert, the blistering sun, the Lowrider car culture – all have awakened her senses and become essential elements within her pieces. Much of Thiewes’s early work contains forms like spiculums (sharp, spear-like shapes) and disks (smooth, rounded shapes) which she uses to comment on gender roles and assumptions. Sound and movement are also integral elements of her jewelry, which often produces sound. Through Thiewes’s rhythmic structure of these gendered forms, she creates pieces that empower women, declaring that they will command every room they enter.