What you’ll learn in this episode:   How Anna finds the plants and animals she incorporates into her work, and how she does so sustainably Why even art jewelry must interact with the body to really be considered jewelry What techniques Anna uses to make delicate materials sturdy and wearable Why Anna hopes her jewelry will connect people to the natural world     About Anna Johnson Anna Johnson is a studio artist, craftswoman and educator residing in Asheville, NC. At a very young age she stumbled upon jewelry making and from then on it became not only her creative outlet, but a space of untampered personal expression that guided her through her educational, professional, and personal development. Equally taken by the depths of the natural world, organic elements began to be her main source of inspiration as her language in jewelry developed.   ​Today her work revolves around the question of where and why our culture perceives value by creating jewelry - often used to display worth, lineage, cultural hierarchy, believe affiliations, etc - with raw elements from directly from the natural world, unique and unpretentiously beautiful, in efforts of providing a fresh line of visual communication, a display of acknowledgment, consciousness, and in alliance with our natural world.   Additional Resources: Website Facebook Instagram   Photos Available on TheJewelryjourney.com    Transcript:   Most people who are drawn to Anna Johnson’s jewelry for the first time have no idea it’s made from leaves, animal bones and other items from nature—and that’s exactly what Anna wants. Adapting techniques to highlight natural materials, she hopes that her jewelry will make people reconsider the world around us. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what attracts her to delicate materials and how she works with them; how she defines jewelry; and why she considers herself an artist first. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it’s released later this week.    Anna Johnson’s jewelry is very different. It’s made of the bones of small creatures—for example, the mandibles of small reptiles—mixed with gems. You’re so taken with the designs that you don’t even realize what they’re made of. That’s exactly what happened to me. I loved the earrings I saw, and I have several pairs, but I didn’t realize they were made of different parts of animals until a jeweler said to me, “Oh, look what these are made of.” I didn’t even realize it.    Anna is a city girl who grew up in Appalachia and went to college in Boone. She’s won several international awards and has been exhibited in a lot of different galleries, but she’ll tell us all about that. Anna, maybe you can tell us. I know with Covid, it must have been really hard for you. Can you tell us about how you came to work with all these animal parts?   Anna: First, thank you so much for having me, Sharon. I’m so excited to have the opportunity to chat with you again. I’ve been working with lots of different elements from nature, and those have really spoken to the development of my body of work.  I think of all the little bones in the same way I think of plants and the gems and minerals I use in my pieces. In looking at nature, the animals and their lifecycles, which would include the bones, are equally important to highlight. They’re also so beautiful and interesting in their shapes and textures and all of those things. The bones are also durable, especially when you pull the idea of taboo off of them. I feel like a lot of times when bones are used, they’re used in the context of the taboo or the macabre. I’m trying to take the focus away from that and put them in the same context of how I use plants and minerals, which are elemen