JOHANNA BRIERLEY

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Johanna Brierley's lifelong fascination with jewelry can be traced back to a childhood spent rummaging through her grandmother's jewelry chest. For generations, Johanna's family has been collecting lucky stones with natural holes becuase hole stones are believed to be symbols of good luck. As a child, Johanna made numerous jewelry pieces incorporating lucky stones only to discover that over time, the real stones would crack and break. By learning the processes of molding and lost wax casting while studying Jewelry Arts at George Brown College in Toronto, Johanna turned her lucky stones into silver and gold, giving the natural shapes strength and durability. Johanna mold and cast her first lucky stone, a stone with a hole in the shape of a heart she named Lucky in Love, in 2000. Johanna now works in her studio in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and hopes to share the luck she has found through her pieces of jewelry.