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South Beloit artist brings ancient jewelry
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Artist Dylan Haller has spent the better part of the last decade honing his craft as a jewelry designer and craftsman, but he says he still loves making each piece and seeing the finished product proudly worn by his customers.To get more news about 3d software jewelry design, you can visit jewelryhunt.net official website.
Haller, 26, founded a wire wrapping jewelry business known as Gangsta Wrapz, a play on his love for ‘90s hip hop and the genre of jewelry he intricately crafts, after seeing a wire-wrapped jewelry piece a friend had purchased.
Each piece of jewelry the Roscoe native makes takes between five and 20 hours to make, depending on the size and difficulty of the piece. All pendants include sterling silver wire wrapping around various precious stones and minerals, usually with a major central stone and then outlying rows of smaller stones. Pieces can be symmetrical or asymmetrical, sometimes round and feature various patterns.He decided to take his passion for making jewelry and turn it into a full-time career three years ago, and since then he hasn’t looked back. He continues to improve the quality of the pieces he makes and materials used in crafting the unique designs.
“I wanted to be creative and have an outlet,” Haller said. “Doing this was fun to me. The next thing I know I am a businessman, a website manager, a social media marketing coordinator, an accountant— all the things that it takes to be a small business owner. At first I wanted to just make things, but then there was a whole market selling things.Haller said he draws inspiration for his pieces from his love for solving puzzles and building each piece.
“The process that takes longest is the wrapping,” Haller said. “I think I am slower than some people because I focus on getting it just how I want it instead of rushing through it. I think I am methodical like that. It’s a puzzle in and of itself. It’s fun to create it, but to me the building process is the most fun. Just getting down and actually bending the wires and the pendant—it’s fun for me to get there and start working.”
Each piece starts with a thick wire frame that builds its shape around the pendant. From there, Haller takes sections and layers of wire to fit the design’s flow and motion. No adhesives or soldering are used to hold the wire and stone in place.
“It’s all different components that layer in and hold one another in place,” Haller said. “It’s a great creative outlet. It’s hard for me to just sit there calmly. It keeps me away from my mind wandering and it soaks me in and it’s therapeutic and it’s something to express my creativity. I love working for myself.”Wire-wrapped jewelry dates back thousands of years, with some wrapped pieces dating back to 2000 BC, and Haller said he loves to learn the history of the stones he uses in pieces. Some stones used include agate, opal, moonstone, citrine, amethyst, kyanite and many more.