McComsey Designs is a shop full of silver and gemstone jewelry with an organic feel. Julie’s passion for making started when she was just two years old and drew on her kitchen wall with a red crayon. While her parents weren’t happy, from that point on she was always obsessed with making things with her hands. Drawing, painting, building things with scraps of wood from her dad’s workshop, ceramics, she was always looking for a way to keep her hands, and mind, busy creating.

It was a ceramics class a couple of years ago that led Julie to jewelry. She was inspired to create big chunky ceramic beads for jewelry and after some more research and a few trips to the local jewelry supply place, she got hooked. Now her life currently focuses around all things jewelry – tools, metal, stones, designing and learning new techniques. There is just so much more she wants to learn to do and not to mention the designs in her head just waiting to be brought to life.

It wasn’t until just recently that she realized that she could actually make a business out of her creativity and so Julie took the leap into selling because she loves knowing that someone else is enjoying something she made with her own two hands. Stuck in a corporate 9-5 job, she was able to break out and start her own business with the support of her family. She feels incredibly luck to be doing something she is so passionate about each and every day!

I believe in supporting handmade and being a part of a renewal of the forgotten handcrafted arts. I always thought it would be fun to start a company that preserved and taught people how to do all the traditional crafts and skills that are slowly disappearing in our society. Be it blacksmithing and metal work, stone cutting, fabric weaving, fresco painting, or building a gothic cathedral from the ground up. Seems like these days everyone is more interested in speed and cost rather than craftsmanship and making something they can truly take pride in.

Like all of us artists, Julie’s favorite piece changes all the time. For now her Rock Pile ring is her favorite, inspired by the beautiful walls she discovered on a trip to Greece she took with her husband that were made made by piling up rocks in a slightly organized way. I love this interpretation in ring from. My favorite, though, is her Blue and Green of the Sea Necklace (so much so, I almost didn’t post it so that I could save it for myself).

If you happen to live in the Portland Oregon area, you can find Julie’s work at Paseo Artisans. While some day she would like to do some art fairs right now she is focused on learning new techniques. She is mostly self-taught and has taken a few classes but mostly has learned through reading and experimenting. Her many areas of interest and her background in fine art, art history, architecture and graphic design have led her to creating pieces often using organic, simple, clean lines.

I have always had a strong interest, ok, obsession with all forms of art, design, and architecture – all of those elements along with just ordinary items and places I have traveled to are all influences. Everything I see gets my mind spinning. I can’t look at anything without analyzing its design, color etc. and how I could apply it to something I am making. I once came up with a great design idea when I looked at the pattern on my bathrobe one morning. I put my heart and soul into every item I make. Mass produced items are a bit soulless to me. There is nothing behind them but a machine. And in this age of technology I feel that humans are becoming less connected with each other. Buying something handmade in a strange way gives you a bit of a connection with its maker. The handcrafted object is something of great value that we have forgotten in our society.

You can find out more about Julie on her website.