The Romance of Old Things

Magdalene Joly is inspired by the romance of old things, the hidden potential of objects that have been neglected, and the magic of revitalization.

“I love taking old things and breathing new life into them. I love seeing the beauty in them and bringing it forward,” says Magdalene.

Her earrings and necklaces are mostly made from salvaged and upcycled brass, copper, and silver, enhanced with beads and semi-precious stones. Common motifs are disks, half- and crescent moons, dangling chains, circles within circles, teardrops, and triangles.

Each type of metal has its own personality. “I especially love working with copper,” she says. “It’s fairly forgiving and I’m able to find a lot of it. I just love the way that it is alive and develops a patina, and how it behaves differently in different kinds of weather.

Magdalene started making jewelry in 2016 when she got sick with Lyme disease. She’d been farming on Denman, immersed in a back-to-the-land lifestyle. Illness brought that to a halt.

“I couldn’t do hard physical work. I was visiting someone’s shop and got really inspired. I thought, ‘I could do this. I want to make jewelry.’ I started playing around and was hooked right away.”

The scrap pile at her farm provided a wealth of material. She also began haunting thrift stores, the Denman Free store, and recycling dumpsters. Instead of starting with a finished concept and looking for the right material, she likes to wait and see what she finds and take her inspiration from that.

“Sometimes I find antique brass, or silver-plated copper that has different kinds of vintage prints rolled onto it. I really love this look,” she says.

See Magdalene’s work on Denman: At the Denman Island Craft Shop and the Christmas Craft Fair