Clare Johnston

Jewelry artisan Clare Johnston has had an enduring connection with nature since she was a child. Clare grew up steeped in the beauty of the North Georgia mountains, and created art using pressed leaves and flowers. Clare’s relationship with nature continues as an adult with a love for the flora of her adult home in the Sonoron desert. Translating this love into jewelry, Clare makes sterling silver, gold and gemstone jewelry that interprets nature in graceful and elegant forms. She uses the technique of lost wax casting to create solid sterling silver replicas of the actual dried fiber (aka skeleton) of the prickly pear cactus. Clare then fabricates those organic castings into finished jewelry pieces. Using silver and gold, Clare often creates stylized frames for the cactus skeleton castings to create a dichotomy between the organic freeform cactus skeleton pattern and a structured container. These pieces speak to awe, a sense of place, and a connection to something larger than ourselves.