Artist Profile
Rita Elliott, Lopez Island

Lively, full of energy, down to earth and rich with organic artistry would be how I'd describe Rita Elliott, artist, painter, and jeweler.

Coming from a family of artists, Rita spent her youth in southern California. Rita's mother and brother were both oil painters, something that she had plenty of exposure to as a child and eagerly put into practice herself.

Rita shared the story of when she began her career in sign painting, during her junior high school years. Her first sign-painting project was done for a local pizza parlor in Lakewood, California. The owner seemed fascinated with her enthusiasm, and amazed at how she carried the sign from home all the way to his restaurant to show him the layout she'd done. That experience launched Rita into painting custom signs, and until making the move to Lopez Island in 1972, she continued to focus on painting in general.

It seems that her major inspiration for jewelry making came from her experience at a dental lab where she worked while attending San Francisco State College. That experience, she explained, enhanced her ideas about moving from a two-dimensional plane into a four dimensional plane, creating form and function into her design. "Translating that into my own interpretation of how to use these new experiences in jewelry making."

From then on she made a gradual shift in her artistic focus from being primarily a painter to include the title of jeweler. Even after her relocation to Lopez, she continued taking workshops and classes in metalworking and soon began showing in galleries along the west coast. In 1982 she was one of three artists to present a group show on Lopez, which led to a continuation of showing her work at Grayling Gallery for several more years. Later, Rita co-created Side Street Gallery with Colleen James.

Since that time she has been able to thrive within a small community, and presently is enjoying the success of having her very own studio and gallery location in Lopez Village. You can find her at 25 Eads Lane.

Jewelry Making
She considers her career in jewelry making as focused on fabrication and precise measurements. "I can be more creative with fabrication, to tell you the truth, because I can build upon it. There is something about transforming from a sheet of metal into something that is useful and appealing."

Fabrication isn't the extent of what she does in designing jewelry; she also does castings, which, as she explained, are more challenging for her to see the wax in process. Then she erupts into a gale of laughter and tells me, "My casters deal with my eccentricities," going on to say she'll ask for the gold to be in green, pink, or purple colors (tricky mixtures of alloys) knowing what she's asking for is difficult to pull off. But they manage to do it.

Just recently she returned from a trip to Costa Rica with a choice selection of seashells that she was eager to show me, along with her collection of garnets she's found while hiking in the Cascade Mountains. All serve to inspire the organic shapes she adds to her wax castings. She then explains how visually inspired she is in her creations. To begin designing a piece, she simply starts working, constantly considering her composition, just as a painter would, yet letting the stones lend the design in the metal.

Mentoring
Over the years Rita has enjoyed working with young students. She participated in the high school Artist Program from 1980 to 1986, teaching the process of jewelry making, and continues to occasionally mentor students from the high school at her studio location.

During her vast career she has also enjoyed some rather unusual opportunities, one of which was to rebuild jewelry from the King of Omen, Saudi Arabia!

Above all Rita loves her community and is amazed to have its trust to provide such a level of creativity, which itself seems as rare as it is precious.

Tori Williams is a web designer who also writes and produces the San Juan Islands' Artist Community website, www.SanJuanArtistCommunity.com.