Modern industrial chainmail: traditional handcraft meets STEM.
Journalists: try the Press page.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of artists, engineers, and scientists, so perhaps it’s not surprising that my work celebrates that intersection of ideas and processes! I grew up believing I could take things apart and create something new, and in the value of seeing things differently. My own take on modern chainmail allows me to capture the patterns I see, and to create a new kind of everyday armor with its own modern style. I love hearing that my jewelry gives people the confidence to bring their own spin to the world.
Kelly is wearing the Rose Window Earrings
see more earrings
The engineering components I connect together are hidden fasteners, so you might not recognize them. They’re also used in auto transmissions, airplane hydraulics, and motorcycle hubs. Titanium and stainless steel make strong, light jewelry that never needs polishing; titanium ear wires are less likely to cause a reaction than gold.
seen in the video: the Concentric Earrings (small) and the Short Fuchsia Earrings
I love turning strong, lightweight metals into fluid, articulated chain that slithers, shimmers, and dangles on the body. I love experimenting, trying to find the perfect ratios of wire gauges and ring diameters that will hold a pattern’s shape with tension alone, without becoming rigid or dissolving into a tangle of messy links. And I love that such edgy, interesting, beautiful materials are so indestructible, and so easy to wear and to live with.
seen in the video: the Wisteria Bracelet
I make each piece by hand using chainmail techniques, opening and closing each tiny ring with two pairs of pliers. But I don’t connect them in traditional patterns — I develop my own designs, exploring the tension between the wire gauges, the diameters of the rings, and the hardware I use. The flexibility and stability I can achieve with these kinds of connections creates striking articulated patterns full of movement.
It’s a slow, meditative process, joining and smoothing and polishing hundreds of tiny titanium rings into a single necklace. But I appreciate my time spent in that sense of flow, and the connection to an ancient handcraft, reinterpreted for a modern lifestyle.
Questions? Contact me at info@wraptillion.com
In case you wondered:
- My super-secret alter ego is writer and curious person Kelly Jones.
- But (disambiguation alert!) I’m not the same person as:
- The other writer Kelly Jones who wrote Lost and Found in Prague and other art history novels
- Rock musician Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics
- Kelley Jones the comics illustrator
