Lauren Beach of Lauren Loraine Designs creates jewelry in wood, stone, and metal in her home-based studio. A bone carving and inlay apprenticeship in New Zealand in 2010 was the catalyst for pursuing a studio practice, and she has spent recent years teaching herself additional woodworking and lapidary skills. She spent 2019 working as an apprentice to metalsmith Nisa Smiley of Franklin, Maine through the Maine Craft Apprentice Program, produced jointly by the Maine Crafts Association in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
“Designing is immersive for me…Whether it’s the woods or in my studio, I try to get lost in creation – constantly asking myself, “how can I bring my surroundings into my work?” When I’m at my workbench, I’m never far from the shorelines and woods where my materials are found. Each stone, or piece of wood transports me back to a place I’ve been before. Those places have moved me, and my objective is to bring you with me through my work.
Where the shorelines are rough, where the woods are encompassing,
my workbench is where the symbols of both worlds come together,
where my found relics are laid out before me,
soon to become my collections of fine handmade jewelry that I pass onto you in nature refined.
Lauren Loraine Designs is based out of the natural surroundings of Maine.”
