About the Owner

Silversmith and lapidary artist Priscilla Walsen makes stone inlay jewelry, unique hollow forms, handmade “confetti” chains and three-dimensional pieces. She uses both traditional and modern metal working and lapidary techniques to create handmade jewelry, often in one-of-a-kind designs.

Priscilla is best known for her bold colorful stone inlay designs. Priscilla uses geometric shapes to create clean lines that complement the colors and patterns in the stone. A true lapidary artist, Priscilla starts with rough gemstone material, and then saws, grinds, sands and polishes each piece of stone. This time-intensive process includes slowly grinding the stone material to fit the final setting. Priscilla's jewelry is notable for its detailed textured surfaces and forms and for the careful attention paid to the final finish. 

In addition to working with sterling silver materials using traditional silversmithing methods, Priscilla also works with fine silver metal clay.  Fine silver metal clay is a malleable form of fine silver made from recycled silver. Her work with fused fine silver metal clay includes unique hollow forms and highly textured three dimensional designs.

Priscilla took her first silversmithing and metal shop classes while in high school and began studying lapidary arts in the 1990s. She founded SilverWear in 1997 after learning stone inlay techniques at Ghost Ranch in Abiqui, NM. In November 2006, her stone inlay work was featured in Lapidary Journal (Jewelry Artist) magazine. She also is a certified Precious Metal Clay (PMC®) Artisan by the Precious Metal Clay Guild. 

Priscilla earned a B.A. in English from Princeton University. She creates her jewelry in her studio in Ojo Sarco on the historic High Road to Taos, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico.