FASHION : Relics of the Past Transform Jewelry Into Timeless Treasures : Shelley Waln blends tiny watch parts with her own artistic talents to create ornate broaches, earrings, tie clips and hair clips.
Chances are you have an old unworkable watch gathering dust in a drawer, but you hate to part with it because it has sentimental value.
Shelley Waln of Time After Time has thousands of old watches, but when she gets her hands on them, they are transformed into objects of beauty, unique works of art that she painstakingly fashions into broaches, earrings, tie clips and hair clips.
After seeing her jewelry at the First Sunday at the Park in Ventura, I visited her studio, a long narrow room attached to the garage of her home in Oak View.
Countless disemboweled watches fill every inch of three large trays. Time literally stands still in this mechanical graveyard littered with watch parts, including watch bases waiting for Waln’s face lift. Nearby, dozens of finished pieces are on display. Ornate and delicate, some are purely whimsical, like the broach with a tiny knife and fork on a heart-shaped face decorated in roses and rhinestones.
“That’s a good one for someone on Weight Watchers,” Waln says with a laugh.
Another old watch has the faces of two young girls etched on the front--the hair and dress styles look to be late 1800s.
“I haven’t decided what to do with that one yet, but it’s going to have to become something special,” Waln says.
A friend of hers doesn’t like to be around that watch because she finds it eerie. Waln, on the other hand, revels in it and all the other relics of the past that occupy her present.
The broaches are decorated with hearts, roses, rhinestones, whatever she can get her hands on. People give her their old jewelry, some with diamond chips, pearls and rubies. Sometimes, she trades for finished works. Each piece is different, making it excruciatingly difficult to choose one over another. Her customers take so long deciding that she’s tempted to offer them chairs. I had the same problem, lingering so long I thought she’d charge me rent.
One piece had a cat’s face etched with grapes, hearts and rhinestones, another had a horse’s head, Levi jeans and roses. And yet another featured a hummingbird and a tiny vial that was used by watchmakers to hold intricate parts. One watch face has been cut in half and made into a pair of earrings framed with tiny roses.
On some faces, Waln paints miniature scenes, an ability she just discovered. She’s only been in the jewelry-making business for two years. A bad back forced her to quit working as a waitress, so she started fashioning new jewelry out of old pieces. Her husband had begun to collect old watches and suggested that she put the unworkable ones into her jewelry. He now handles the business end, reselling working watches.
Watches come to them from all parts of the country, primarily the East, but Waln prefers not to divulge the wheres and hows of her acquisitions. No point in instructing the competition, although she thinks she’s in a league of her own.
“If there are other people doing watch jewelry, it’s reproduction craft watches they buy from craft stores and there’s no nostalgia to it at all,” she says.
If you ask how she comes up with her unique designs, she struggles to explain the process.
“Certain watch bases appeal to me,” she says. “I like ones that have an older look to them, and I piece them together, make a backing on a filigree and then just keep adding old jewelry, pearls or rhinestones or whatever on top of the watch faces. It’s a collage.”
She believes the past is what appeals to her customers. “People are very sentimental about time, because we all live by it and everyone kind of stored their watches as if they were something special,” she says. “There’s an aura about the different time periods. Maybe one was a watch someone used to get to the chapel on time for a wedding back in the old days.”
Waln is so confident of her talent that “it sounds like I’m not being humble, but they are actually works of art which I think could be in a gallery,” she says.
Her handcrafted items please the pocketbook, with prices ranging from $15 to $50. So check out that old dusty trunk or bottom drawer. You might be able to make a deal.
Details
* FYI: Shelley Waln’s jewelry is shown at First Sunday in the Park, Crafter’s Showcase and Nicholby’s Antiques in Ventura; Penny Pinchers in Simi Valley; Peddler’s Faire in Ojai. For a private showing, or more details, call 649-9051.
