Steampunk Jewelry at Santa Fe Shop

Necklaces by Melissa Tomerlin.

Jewelry designer Melissa Tomerlin will show her unique style of jewelry at the Santa Fe Shop in Fish Creek.

Tomerlin makes beautiful new jewelry from vintage watch parts. Her jewelry pays homage to the beauty of the gears found behind the clock face. This eclectic mix of new and old parts, showcasing the shiny gears and moving pieces with a romantic feel, can be defined as steampunk.

Digging around in a booth at a flea market, Tomerlin discovered an old box with a treasure trove of stampings – many more than 100 years old. Intrigued by them, she researched and found that most of the companies that had made them were still in business and still had most of the original molds. Flipping through the Xerox copies of the stampings that made up the catalogs and remembering a box of old watches she had seen at one of her secondhand haunts, she knew she wanted to create a collection of jewelry featuring the artistic heritage of jewelry making in the United States and the hidden beauty of the insides of old watches.

The stampings that she gets in raw brass form are sawed, hammered, riveted, plated, oxidized, and formed into pieces inspired by the Victorian, art nouveau, art deco, and current eras – depending on the minute details of the watch.

Tomerlin’s designs appeal to a broad range of styles, and would look at home in nearly every one’s collection.

The Santa Fe Shop is located at 4147 Main St. in Fish Creek.