Tina Finneran

: Fixed pearl pod earrings, freshwater pearls and .999 silver, 24k gold foil.

For Lopezian jeweler, Tina Finneran, it all started when she was three years old and her father returned from a tour in Japan bringing with him a small necklace of pearls for her mother. Everything about the pearls, from their color and texture to the way in which they were strung, captivated her. Later, in high school, a friend showed her how to string African trade beads in exchange for Finneran sewing for her. “I couldn’t afford to buy jewelry then,” she says, “so it was a great deal.”

Finneran, whose fine jewelry is currently exhibited in Chimera, as well as having been displayed in the gift shop of the new Seattle Art Museum, art festivals in Anacortes, and whose booth is a fixture at the Lopez Farmer’s Market, has no formal training as a jeweler. Indeed, when she first started “seriously” making jewelry, while on a small sailboat touring the South Pacific, she had to begin by building her own tools.

“I worked with what I had, so a lot of what I did was learning to ‘make do’.”

This helps explain why, to Finneran, the process is such an important part of her work.

“I love sailboat hardware and think I bring that same enthusiasm and interest to the mechanics of making jewelry. That’s one of the reasons my wires are different from other jewelers.” This same South Sea period of her life gave her an appreciation of both the South Sea pearls and Mother of Pearl, and developed in her an awareness of the geometric forms Polynesian art borrows from nature.

This desire to impart her sense of texture to her jewelry has led her to working with fine silver (more than sterling) because “fine silver is soft. It takes embossing and has a softer shine, so I prefer it for its malleability and sheen.”

She also incorporates 22 karat gold foil (which is thicker than gold leaf); although she enjoys working with pure gold, she finds its cost prohibitive. Describing herself as a “rockhound since she was a kid,” Finneran also loves working with stones.

“I started out learning to set stones from Agate Beach,” she says, smiling over a cup of coffee, “but my newer work includes faceted stones.”

She mentions how much she enjoys working with jasper, pearls, jade, and even fossils.

“My most unusual work, though, was a birthday gift I made during our sailing days. Because we didn’t have any spare money, I created a necklace out of what was available: black thread, black coral, and the spines of a spiny lobster.”

Though Finneran has no formal schooling in making jewelry, she has participated in Seattle jeweler Micki Lippe’s workshop, Nancy Bingham’s well-known “Art for the Artistically Afraid” class, and Seattle’s PRATT Fine Arts Center. She also credits the large community of various artists on Lopez who have “been so welcoming and shared their knowledge with me so freely. I have a friend from elsewhere in the country who was amazed at how open other artists here are with each other; she says that where she’s from the relationship among fellows artists is much more cut-throat.”

In addition to viewing Finneran’s work at Chimera Gallery, the Lopez Farmer’s Market, and the Preschool Bazaar, samples of her jewelry can be seen at her website, lopezislandjewelry.com.

Finneran will also be on September’s Studio Tour, showing her jewelry at Gerry Newcomb’s studio. She does take commission work on occasion, depending on the piece requested and the materials involved. Finneran can be reached at 468-3735.

When asked how she envisions her work five years from now, Tina Finneran pauses momentarily, then returns to the theme of process which has run throughout this interview.

“Whatever my jewelry is like, I believe it will reflect the fact that I enjoy exploring new techniques while building on ones I’ve learned in the past. It’s always a process.”