High school senior forges career of jewelry making

In the Middle Ages she would have apprenticed for years under a male master silversmith. But this being the 21st century, she’s interning with Suzan Reed at Wild Ivy Studios in Winterport before heading off to art school. Different name, same concept.

Danielle Fearon is following in a tradition stretching back thousands of years, albeit with a contemporary twist. The Hampden Academy senior had always excelled at arts and crafts from an early age. At 15, she decided on a career path while working at The Grasshopper Shop in Bangor.

“I’ve always loved jewelry, and there’s so much jewelry at the store,” the 17-year-old artist recalls. “I would see people bring things in, and I thought I could do it.”

With silver being a more affordable metal to work with, Fearon decided to become a

silversmith. During her sophomore year of high school, she signed up for a metalsmithing class taught by artist Donna Tumaso at Ladysmith Studios in Bangor.

“I took the first class, and I ended up taking four more,” she says. “I learned how to set a stone, how to do wire wrapping, how to make beaded things, how to cast designs in silver.”

Though she’s able to create delicate pieces such a fine chain bracelet, Fearon really loves best to design bolder, earthy pendants and earrings that incorporate sunstone, crazy lace agate and other semiprecious stones as well as glass, or pieces that are cast out of solid silver.

Already Fearon has acquired many tools of her trade including a welding torch, rock tumbler, buffing wheel and saws, drills, pliers and hammers. She doesn’t have her own studio yet, but she and her father are setting one up in the barn of the family’s homestead in Hampden.

“I need a lot of space,” she explains. “It’s fairly tedious work sometimes, and some of the more complicated things I do can take me all day to finish.”

Jeff Fearon runs J. Fearon Drywall in Hampden. The father and daughter love working with their hands.

“My Dad and I are a lot alike,” she reflects. “We like to make things. He’s expressing his art in his own way, and so am I.”

Danielle Fearon is learning the business of selling and marketing jewelry from Suzan Reed. The Hampden Academy student calls her jewelry line Dani Designs, and she sells her pieces from home or at The Grasshopper Shop in Bangor where she still works. For information, call Fearon at 862-4525.