Rickson Sharkey is a full time, independent jewelry artist from Ontario, Canada. She makes custom jewelry pieces and specializes in sculptural jewelry forms carved in wax and cast in precious metals.

She has done her Masters from the Birmingham School of Jewelry in the UK in Jewelry Silversmithing and Related Products. She's been designing, creating and selling her own jewelry since she was in her second year of college.

It was Rickson's Grandmother who made her fall in love with jewelry. She creates both commercial and art jewelry. She is in love with her work and loves connecting with people through her jewelry.

Much of her work deals with the feminine body, fertility and the different cycles of life. According to her statement, "I am interested in the feminine ideal in relation to the female body. I enjoy creating work that expresses my wish to both conform and rebel against ideas of femininity. Through various materials and processes I take from my own body both physically and metaphorically. Hair can be used to comment on feminine allure and power, while clear resin is used to symbolize an abundance of tears." 



1. Hi Rickson, please introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello! I am a full time independent jewellery designer and I work out of my home with my 1 year old son and my husband, who is a full time Dad. I am 28, female and LOVE what I do. I specialize in wax carving detailed and sculptural jewellery. Custom designs are a passion of mine including wedding and engagement rings. I have my Masters in jewellery design and also create art jewelry. See my home studio: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Ricksonjewellery/about/


2. What inspired you to become a jewelry artist and choosing it as a profession? What other artforms do you dabble in? How did you get started with art photography?

I have always been an artist. My Dad used to tease me that I would be a starving artist and he was so right (accept for the starving part!). I went to OCADU for fine art, and in second year you choose your major, and jewelry design seemed like something I couldn’t learn on my own, and I had never tried it before. After my first class I was hooked! I had a natural talent for precision on small pieces. When I tried lost wax casting I didn’t want to do any other techniques! I cast my entire thesis and my prof’s couldn’t figure out why! I just love carving wax. All my life I’ve tried to draw what’s in my head and I couldn’t do it until University. But the first time I tried carving something, it just worked! I could create a 3D piece of the image in my head.

I dabble in sculpture and more recently children’s toys! But I’ll stay focused on art jewellery and photography right now. During my Masters I started making pieces that dealt with the relationship between the female body and femininity. So it only seemed natural that the pieces be photographed on my body, since they work is about me. I borrowed a classmate’s camera and started exploring ways of photographing myself. I’ve always loved photography and it’s always been around since my Dad is an amateur photographer. I knew I had a knack for it when a professional photographer came to our school to photograph our small scale silver jewellery. When I showed my prof, he said I should use my own photographs.



My work is about me. I am very emotional, so almost all of my work is from my interior world. I have definitely used art as therapy! My thesis in University was on dreams and the subconscious. Then my thesis for my Masters was on femininity and the female body. I was once told that you should do work with what you know, so I suppose I am spending my career getting to know myself. I also do a lot of commissions, which is so much fun because my clients give me the seed of the piece and I make it grow! I really do hand carve every piece. But afterwards I make a mold so I can make multiples. From a mold I make wax pieces which I often carve, if people want changes, engravings, or a different size. Then that piece is cast and polished. My art pieces are all one of a kind.

See my process here: http://ricksonart.blogspot.ca/2010/01/claddaghduh.html


4. What technique do you use to make your jewelry, right from coming up with a concept to actually giving the finishing touches to one? Please elaborate on the tools and processes you use. 

When I have an idea I start with drawings. I stay in the phase for a long time, looking at images online for inspiration, and playing with different designs. I really like symbols, so I am often striving for a symbol of the emotion I am trying to communicate. I draw the idea until it’s fully ‘cooked’. Then I carve my idea in wax which is my favorite part! The piece is then placed in a flask, filled with plaster and then the wax is melted out, so you have a negative space where your carved piece used to be. This space is then filled with molten metal. When it cools you put the flask in water so the plaster dissolves. You are left with a rough metal piece of your carving! Then the piece is sanded and polished. Sometimes stones are set in the wax, but if they can’t take the heat of casting they are set afterwards.

For my art jewelry I use any technique that suits the ideas. I would not say I am material driven, but rather idea’s set my work in motion. For my Masters work I basically molded and fabricated wearable sculpture from wax, hair and resin. My piece ‘Fountain of Tears’ was created by dripping flexible resin down fishing line so that it set in droplets. This was a wonderful technique because I’d never seen it before and it’s so visceral. I just set it in motion and gravity did the rest!




I love this series as well and it DOES have a story. I actually created quite a few drawings that never made it to becoming ‘real’ sculptures. When my Grandmother was in the hospital, dieing, I watched my Grandfather holding her hand and it was the first time I saw aging and death as beautiful. It was like my Grandfather was life and she was death and they were connected. So I created a drawing of two skeletons holding hands with their hearts connected by the blood running down their arms. It was still too fresh at the time to create it, though I meant to. Instead I created the pieces that were closer to my own experience of love, heartache, and pregnancy. This series I crafted from wax, and melted the bones into the positions I wanted. Then I painted them and added the red details for the hearts. I was so pleased with the effect and people responded strongly to them at exhibitions. Some people were bothered by them, my husband included. He said ‘I don’t like the dead baby.’ I explained to him that the skeletons aren’t dead people, they are just skeletons. They are in life like positions, engaging in living experiences. But since they are skeletons they remind us of death, and they are what we will look like when we are dead. They inhabit both worlds simultaneously.




My Handmade Division site is a team shop. I am the captain of a team on Etsy and our main goal is to sell out work together. My home shop is www.RicksonJewellery.Etsy.com. I find Etsy is ideal for selling because they have already attracted my target market. If I sell through my blog or private website, it’s harder for my audience to find me, though I do find blogging is a useful promotion tool. I give lectures on online promotion and I tell people websites are like little rafts in the middle of an ocean, so no one can find you. But websites like Etsy are like cruise ships that attract a lot of people and connect to other places. On Etsy I have an entire shop and all I’ve done is plugged in photos and descriptions. I’ve been with them over 5 years now and each year has been better than the last. I just LOVE Etsy.


7. How do you promote your store? What do you think is the ideal mix of social, online and offline promotion? What about word-of-mouth promotion?

This is a tough one. In general I do not thing promotion should cost anything. Word of mouth, socializing (on and offline), exhibitions and shows are all you need to get the ball rolling. Once you know your target market, contacting the appropriate magazine and websites can be beneficial, but I don’t believe in spending a lot of money on advertising. Personally over the years I’ve cut down on promotion because I am too busy running my business, and the bigger the business the more people promote for you. I use Facebook, twitter, my blog and Etsy to ‘socialize’ and promote my work. I’ve read that the more places you show up online the better, so I used to comment on other artists work, and really get involved on sites like http://crafthaus.ning.com/profile/Rickson. I also used to do a lot of shows, as I was growing my business. But this year I didn’t do any and I realized they are not profitable and I am doing great without them. However they are integral to starting a business! I found out so much about what people like, who my market is, and how to talk about my work. I used to LOVE doing shows, but now with a growing family, I can’t justify all the time and work they take. Joining groups online and in real life is a great way to promote you work and meet other artists. I think the ideal mix is a little of everything. But always concentrate on your work more! It’s easy to get caught up in promotion because it can be addictive online, but it’s more important to tweet about new work then old work.


8. What other artists do you look up to? If you could peek inside the studio/toolbox of any one other artist/craftsperson, whose would it be and why?

I’ve always loved HR Giger and Salvador Dali and surrealism in general. I am drawn to Frida Kahlo’s use of symbols and the body. Did you know Dali made jewellery? He designed some amazing pieces. However, the artist I look up to most is my Grandmother Dorothy (not the one that inspired the skeleton series). She got her art degree when she was 50 years old, and made abstract sculptures from wood and metal. I would love to see her tool box because she works larger than me and I’ve always wanted to create large scale pieces. Also there’s something about a little old lady holding a chain saw that tickles me. I look up to her because her life is an interesting combination of social obligation and rebellion. She was a mother of 5 in the 1950’s. At my brother’s wedding she whispered to me ‘aren’t weddings funny, the bride gets all dressed up when she’s just entering into slavery’. I was reading ‘The Feminine Mystique’ at the time (a book that paints a pretty grim picture of 1950’s housewives’ so I asked her ‘What was it like being a housewife in the 1950’s? She said ‘I LOVED it!’ And I know she meant it. Then when her kids were grown she went and got her art degree. At 75 she still gave tours at a local historical museum. But her husband didn’t believe women should work, so every day she would tell him she was going grocery shopping and would go to work instead! Maybe not the most liberated technique, but I just love that she did what she wanted in her situation! I just love hanging out with her. She’s one of a kind.


9. What leisure activities do you like to participate in when you are not working? What do you find most relaxing?

Eating chocolate while answering questions about my work. I like reading and spending time with my husband and son. I love being outdoors seeing the world through my son’s young eyes. Ironically I love making things in my spare time, so I spend a lot of time in my studio! I’ve made friends with other new Mom’s and started making them gifts for their children’s first birthday. I’ve made a wood book, a felt toy briefcase, a wallet with fake money and cards, and a set of play food for my nephew who’s 2 years old.





Right now I am trying to streamline my business so I can spend more time making jewellery. I have slowly started spending too much time answering emails and book keeping, which is not why I became an artist! I am designing new wedding and engagement rings, and working on quite a few custom pieces. One is a mobius strip staircase which is quite exciting. Another is a rose gold skull wedding and engagement ring. I am also working on a custom piece with two anatomical hearts connected by their veins with heart stones inside. Personally I’m expanding my ‘New Mom’ series based on my experiences with my family. In the concept image you can see my idea to have a silver baby set in a druzy stone. Very exciting!  http://ricksonart.blogspot.ca/2012/11/i-love-being-new-mom-jewelry.html

I donate every month to the Toronto Humaine society because I LOVE cats and animals, but am allergic to them, so I can’t help out physically. I was inspired when an outbreak of ring worm forced an animal shelter to put down 300 animals! In the end they only put down 100 due to public outcry, but it was still devastating. I realized that since I make Cat jewelry I was in an ideal position to raise funds for animal shelters. Since I started I’ve been contacted by many animal rescue centers and have donating multiple pieces to various charity events and fundraisers. I like connecting the meaning behind my pieces to tangible causes. When I first started creating jewelry I felt guilty that it’s a business based on vanity. But I soon discovered that although jewelry can be worn to show wealth, more often it’s worn to communicate what we believe in. We wear jewelry to show our religion, our family, our personal likes, our style, and most of all who we love. I was so pleased when I found a way to support something I believe in through the sale of my jewelry. You can read more about ‘Jewellery activism’ in my blog: http://ricksonart.blogspot.ca/2010/07/jewellery-activism.html



I’ll give you the same advice my uncle (another artist in the family) gave me when I was very young, interviewing him for a class project. He said if you are going to make a career from your art, make sure you are making what you want. I took it to heart and couldn’t be happier. Even my custom work is based on my style and the original pieces people have seen me create. It’s important to stay focused and trust yourself. I was discouraged a lot as a child from pursuing art as a career. Luckily not from anyone close to me, but it’s common knowledge that art is not a ‘reliable’ career, and people say it not thinking that it will affect the paths people take in a negative way. I saw a lot of classmates go down the ‘business’ route because they wanted stability and were scared of not making enough money. You have nothing to fear by fear itself. Art can be a career! But you need to focus on your art work and what you want out of life first. Then the business end will fall into place. It has to be built on work you love to make.

Thank you Rickson for taking out the time and doing this interview with us. We'd like to wish you the very best for the future.

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