By Lynette Carrington
Like many young girls, Liette Murphy created friendship bracelets and other jewelry for people she knew.
“I was always crafting and making things, drawing and painting,” says the Pennsylvania native who moved to Prescott at the age of 5.
She relocated again, after graduating high school, to Tucson to attend college, earning a degree in Spanish linguistics. Still carrying the jewelry bug, she took classes in it a Pima Community College.
“I went there for years and kept taking the same classes over and over again with the same teachers,” Murphy says. “They had a really outstanding blacksmithing course that I took, and I just kept at it.”
She soon procured her own jewelry-making tools and books and continued to work on the foundation she received at school.
Murphy was able to parlay those skills into Flying Crow Metalworks. She makes jewelry from silver, copper and brass, along with unusual and subtle patinas. Her jewelry designs follow a natural flow and an underlying Southwestern influence.
“I’m still exploring my style and refining what I am trying to present in my jewelry,” Murphy explains. “Whether I’m trying to capture it or not, I’m very influenced by the Southwest. The landscapes influence my jewelry technique and I like a lot of movement.”
Through the soldering process, she’s riveting as well.
“If I create bracelets or earrings, I like them to sway and move around on their own,” she says.
Murphy utilizes silver, brass and copper, coral, turquoise and semi-precious stones in her jewelry line instead of creating pieces that shoppers might see at the mall.
“I want the jewelry that I create to stand out and be more unique,” Murphy explains. “I’m married, and I have my diamond engagement ring, but that’s the only diamond I own. Everything else I have is colorful and interesting stones and I’m attracted to patterns. I use fossilized coral quite a bit in my jewelry because I love the patterns in the stone.”
Murphy sells her jewelry on Etsy.
“I definitely, in the near future, hope to find a storefront that will carry my work,” she says. “I hope for my business to be totally self-supporting in a few years.”
Jewelry by Flying Crow Metalworks is available at etsy.com/shop/FlyingCrowMetalworks.
