Artist feature: Kathleen Hayward

Kathleen Hayward creates unique beaded jewelry and mixed media wind chimes using upcycled and found materials.

She became interested in "made objects" while working as an industrial photographer in the 1980s. Her passion evolved into the use of black and white photography and traditional lab development processes to capture man-made objects juxtaposed against a natural landscape setting.

Kathleen is still involved in photography but decided to pursue jewelry making in 1999. She uses her previous knowledge of free-flowing space and color to create new objects in the form of jewelry. She taught herself to create sterling silver jewelry and started adding beads to create one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art. This led to new ideas that included wind chimes constructed from silver plated tea service, driftwood, silverware, upcycled and found materials, and semi-precious stones and beads. Kathleen also uses spoon and fork handles left over from the construction of wind chimes to create new objects such as spoon rings and bracelets with detailed embellishments.

Kathleen does most of her work in her home studio and takes custom orders, offering one-on-one design services to meet the needs of her clients.

She has participated in the Bizarre Bazaar for eight years and more of her work can be found on her website.