Junior Art Education major Bethany Oliveri discovered an unexpected love for jewelry after she nearly skipped Rowan’s Intro to Jewelry course. The class focused on the basics of the craft, and making pins and brooches. Now, she is in the advanced section, where each semester, the topic changes and the professor rotates. 

“I almost didn’t take it, because I heard a review from someone else, and they were like, ‘you know, it’s not really what you think, you’re not making jewelry, jewelry.’ But I was like, you know what? I’m still going to take it because I really wanted to just try it,” said Oliveri. “It was one of the only hands-on classes. I took it with Maureen Duffy, who is my world now, I love her so much. To sit down with an artist and such an amazing professor, I basically just fell in love with it.”

She travels far and wide to expand her skills at craft schools that specialize in jewelry and more art styles. Since her freshman year, she has aimed to go to one to two craft schools each year. For three years in a row, she has gone to Peter’s Valley School of Craft in Layton, NJ. She also received a scholarship from Rowan to go to the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee and took a jewelry class there. 

“I won a scholarship to go to the Baltimore Jewelry Center. I took a class there. Then I also went to Glacier Art Memorial to help be a TA, where I also took a class,” said Oliveri. “So I try to get a lot of experience, not only in Rowan but outside of Rowan as well.” 

Focusing on computer-automated design, Oliveri’s been learning to 3D print objects and cast them into wax to put them into metal. She has also been working with new machinery, such as torches and drills. She enjoys incorporating her love for animals in her artwork, painting a frog zoo pal plate and crafting a belt buckle that said “save a horse, ride a cowboy” in her enameling class at Peter’s Valley. 

“So originally, it was going to be a belt buckle, and I used little pieces of parts from rings to create this belt buckle that was heavily Western-inspired,” she said. “It’s a very feminine western belt buckle that goes against the traditional masculine belt buckle norms. So, I created this huge wax bow to go right on the center of this belt buckle. Then, in the center, I used one of the rings with a side profile of a horse.” 

Some of her best memories in the art world have sparked from bonding with other creatives at Peter’s Valley. While attending an enameling workshop by artist Rachel Kenninger, Oliveri made connections with her peers while learning new skills. 

“Our benches were all together, so we were talking the whole time. We made little bowls and had an ice cream party out of the bowls that we made. It was just so much fun,” she said. “Then after classes, we would go get ice cream, or we would go get dinner together. It was just like, I think that’s the first time where I’ve been in one of those classes where it was just non-stop fun.” 

Oliveri believes that all students should take art courses and will benefit from them. She is excited about the growing number of new classes for the study and plans to delve into new classes next semester. She plans to take a sculpture class and possibly ceramics and printmaking. 

“Next semester, since this is my advanced jewelry class, if I can’t take jewelry again, I’ll probably start picking up ceramics and printmaking. Those are two other things I really would love to learn about, and it’s all based on, you know, your hands and everything,” she said. “For our major, we’re just required to take certain classes. Of course, I’ve taken painting, drawing, all that kind of stuff, but jewelry is the only one where I feel like I just really [have] fallen in love with it.” 

For student artists first starting, Oliveri emphasizes the importance of patience in craft. When creating the first sketch, or a rough draft for a project, she expresses it is okay to change an original idea. Oliveri’s two words of wisdom for aspiring creatives are “adaptation” and “perseverance.”

“I’ve put 20 hours into one piece, and when you show it to people, they don’t see the 20 hours of frustration, sometimes anger. I’ve had to restart pieces,” she said. “I’ve gotten all the way to the finishing spot and broken something off and like, now I’m starting over again. So patience is definitely key in the art world. Just in general, same thing with perseverance, learning how to make something, maybe not like it, but just keep going.” 

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