Tucked into seven acres of Otto’s woodland lies a studio full of tools and metals. An artist enters the workshop, decides what she wants to create, and begins the process of cutting, stamping, bending, quenching, and more. Soon, the first glimpses of her design start to form. She continues the process of shaping the metal and finally, the idea comes to life. This creative process is how metalsmith Shannon Noelke transforms metal into jewelry.
“Even as a little kid, I liked to play with beads,” recalled Noelke.
Her passion grew while she was in middle school, drawing inspiration from the rock band Grateful Dead as she began to create her own jewelry.
“I tend to make a lot of rings. I think it’s because I work with my hands so much,” shared Noelke.
“I took my first silversmithing class in 1995, and then I just [started to] dabble in metal work,” she explained. The class Noelke took was through the Jacksonville Gem and Mineral Society, a nonprofit organization that prioritizes the education of rocks and minerals, located in Jacksonville, Fla.
In 2007, Noelke opened a bead shop in Florida with a friend who already had a thriving import-export business. That same year, she met her husband, Robert.
“Before I even met him, I knew I was going to marry a blacksmith; sure enough, [when we started dating] he tells me that he’s a blacksmith,” she said.
Within the bead shop was a space where Noelke and her husband were able to open a metalsmithing studio. She began offering introductory copperwork classes, and he, basic blacksmithing classes.
“I was with the bead shop until 2014, and then we decided to go out on our own, taking over a warehouse space and turning it into an art gallery and school. The overhead was really high, though, so we didn’t continue that for more than a year,” she explained. The pair continued working from home until their move to North Carolina.
Noelke, a native of Florida, moved to Macon County with her husband in 2022.
“From the moment my husband and I met, we knew we wanted to live in the mountains. [All of our land] used to belong to my uncle, and when we would come and visit, we would stay [here],” she explained. “When he passed away, the land came up for sale, and since we already had a deep connection with it, we thought [buying it] would be a good way for us to be able to steward something that he loved so much.”
They have turned their land into their home, complete with a workshop where they can create pieces of their own design. But they also have a studio, which is used to teach others about metalsmithing and blacksmithing. Noelke enjoys taking interested “students” through the tedious process of making a bracelet or a ring, for example, and seeing their expressions – a few hours later – when they proudly wear something they made with their own hands.
For more information, visit www.shannonnoelkemetalarts.com or Shannon_noelke_metal_arts on Instagram.