The Valentine’s Day Art Market, hosted by the Art Education Club, marked Wuchun Davis’s first step to starting Wuchun Jewelry, her small business.
Davis is an art major specializing in art education and will graduate this fall. In January, she began making jewelry for herself to address her sensory issues. She started with earrings, as they are her favorite type of jewelry and the most comfortable for her to wear.
The first pieces she created were made from air-dried clay, but Davis found them heavy and fragile. She has since switched to polymer clay, which has proven to be a much more effective material for her jewelry.
Inspired by Hungarian embroidery artwork that adorned her home growing up, Davis often finds herself drawing inspiration from and honoring her culture. Her earrings incorporate Hungarian folk art, colors, patterns and motifs. Some notable pieces of jewelry showcasing her culture are round tulip earrings, folk chicken earrings and swans with bows.
“I felt like I was selling something special, and I continue to feel that way whenever I make my jewelry,” said Davis. “I really enjoy putting my whole heart into each piece, and I guess that’s why I don’t make a lot of the same piece more than five times – I feel like it loses its specialness.”
Veronica Gutierrez from the Art Education Club encouraged Davis to sell her jewelry at the
Valentine’s art market, giving her the opportunity to showcase her work in person for the first time.
“I was so excited. I was really excited,” Davis said. “I’ve done work with commissions before, like painting commissions and stuff like that before, but I was never very passionate about that to be honest. It was more so like I have this skill, and I can use it to make some money, but this time I felt like it was something that I was actually really passionate about, which is making jewelry, especially earrings.”
Looking ahead, Davis hopes to expand her business by offering more jewelry options, such as bracelets, necklaces, hair clips and possibly trinket dishes. She promotes her products on her Instagram account, @wchn_lnn_dvs, and plans to open an Etsy shop soon.
