Recent Jewelry Design Graduate Earns Major Industry Honor

La Inspiracion de una Mariposa necklace
La Inspiracion de una Mariposa, sterling silver and synthetic rubies, by Angely Martinez. Photos by Erica Genece.

This year, Angely Martinez, Jewelry Design ’18, won the Future of the Industry Award from MJSA, an industry association of jewelry designers. The annual contest is open to students across the country, and winning is a singular honor. Martinez won a $1,000 scholarship and a $500 gift certificate for jewelry supplier Rio Grande.

The piece, La Inspiración de una Mariposa, is a string of sterling silver butterfly wings, dotted with tiny synthetic rubies. Martinez’s inspiración was the glasswing butterfly, which blends into the environment with its transparent wings.

“I’m interested in how animals survive—how nature survives,” Martinez says. “Survival is a topic that often comes up in my work.”

She also won second prize in the Accessories Council’s Next Generation Award for her capstone collection, which incorporated a range of materials: vinyl, silver, rubber, and glass.

“I was a little bit shocked, to be honest,” she says. “I just worked really hard and kept refining it.”

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