If you ever have Serena over to your place and leave her alone, you will find her in one of the following places; conversing and playing with whatever animal you happen to have, scanning your bookshelf, or rummaging through your jewellery box. Jewellery items have always held a certain fascination, they tell a lot about a person, their style, personality, and hold personal sentiments and stories of their own. It is all these things that drew Serena toward creating wearable art. Her first jewellery pieces were created in her early high school years from pieces items found at early morning garage sales and flea markets her grandmother would drag her to. The jewellery pieces were taken apart, the components added to stores of previously acquired pieces, and new chockers and bracelets were created. From old forgotten stories, new ones were made.
Serena is self-taught in the art of beading, wire work and jewellery design. Metal work and fine jewellery making however required quality instruction. The need to keep expanding her skills brought her to her first metals class in 2007. She loved the possibilities this added to design choices, along with being able to create completely new pieces from scratch rather than assembling things together. A few night classes lead to enrolling full-time in the Vancouver Community College VCC Jewellery Art and Design program in 2014, where she finished first year with the Overall Acheivement Award from Cavalier Jewelers. Serena has now completed the VCC program with distinction winning several major awards.
Serena loves teaching and is excited to pass on her skills, tips and tricks to budding jewellery artists in Workingsilver classes.