By Efrat Koppel, Photograph provided by Guy Nichols | Madison Locally Sourced
A long workbench anchors Susan Richter O’Connell’s studio, where shelves and drawers hold neatly sorted boxes of stones, enamel shapes, and metals ready to be pulled into new designs. Tools, a flex shaft, vice, and anvil sit within reach, while a soldering area next to the bench allows her to solder and torch enamel. Though she sometimes sketches ideas, most of her pieces emerge at the bench in the basement under deliberate light as she experiments and reimagines materials into finished jewelry. “I feel like it reveals my truest self,” says Susan, describing her work. “It’s the most honest language.”
Susan is a self-taught metalsmith, a practice that grew out of her love of collecting beach stones (then on the East Coast, now along Lake Michigan). “I loved them so much. They went from being in my pocket to how can I continue to carry them with me? How can I have other people see them? And that’s when I started making jewelry as a way to take these found objects and have something I could share with other people.”
What began with silver thread wrapped around found objects became the passion and work of her life. Once a dancer who sold jewelry on the side while teaching dance classes, Susan emerged as a master in her space, leading workshops throughout the northeastern part of Wisconsin and maintaining an intuitive, material-driven design process. She also started teaching and developing the metalsmithing classes at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan.
Susan’s focus in her jewelry shifted a decade ago, when enameling became more possible for her. She learned how to use the same torch she used for metal soldering to fuse enamel to metal. A further breakthrough came in 2019, when she and her husband moved to Menominee for his teaching position at University of Wisconsin-Stout. In the small town without an arts center, Susan began auditing metalworking classes to connect with an artistic community. Professors and students were “pushing the envelope, making crazy beautiful pieces,” she says. “I knew we were going to be there for a short time, so I sunk my teeth into all I could learn.” In addition, these courses required Susan to build within a prompt, something that would return years later as a defining force in her creative process.
Enamel was a natural fit for Susan. A child of the flower power generation, bright colors have been dear to her all her life. Where the stones captured Susan’s attention through texture and shape, enamel offered an opportunity to add a punch of color. At first, the technique didn’t take off with her customer base, acclimated to the natural tones of her stonework, but that changed when they’d see her in person. “I’m small, and I wear these pieces that tend to be pretty big. Previously, people would say, ‘Oh, I can’t wear anything that big. I’m too small.’ But then here I am, this small person wearing five necklaces, earrings, several rings. I overdo it at shows, and the jewelry gets bought off of me.”
With Susan’s livelihood rooted in art fairs, in-person classes, and stores and gallery sales, the COVID pandemic brought to a halt everything that comprised her income until then. Historically, she had worked deeply with the communities that surrounded her in a six-hour radius. Her practice was sustained on long-cultivated in-person relationships. Now, she began connecting online with jewelers from around the country through a group she’d been following for years called SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths). Though nervous to join a room with big names in the field, she found the community welcoming, eager to share opportunities.
Susan had never considered national exhibitions before; she found it difficult to use words to articulate her work, which is intuitive. Yet soon her pieces were in galleries and exhibitions across the country. “COVID shut everything down, but it also opened doors. All of a sudden, I was in shows in Boston, Baltimore, Seattle, and Tucson—things I never would’ve applied for if it weren’t for that SNAG connection.”
She also applied for Artful Home, an online retailer. The application required a big effort she’d always put off. During COVID, with no other options, she submitted and got accepted. This became her financial lifeline, replacing much of her lost income and connecting to buyers from across the country.
The pandemic provided the conditions, however unexpectedly, that grew Susan’s career. Her work was a perfect fit for the moment. “So many people were working on Zoom and not going into the office to work, and they wanted statements that could be seen.”
People buy jewelry no matter what’s going on in their lives, and sometimes during hardship, even more so. “I remember really clearly, one of my regular customers in Madison at Art Fair on the Square came and she got a more expensive bracelet than she would typically have bought. And she said, ‘I deserve this. I just deserve this now. It’s been such a hard year.’”
Looking ahead, Susan’s focus is on more exhibitions around the country, now her favorite challenge. “I love applying for shows. I love the limits, the parameters enforced by their call. You’re not building for a customer; you’re building for a challenge. You can take all the stops out.” She shows me a box that has a large flower on top. Popping it open, the lid itself becomes a ring. “That’s where I feel my largest growth has happened in recent years.”
Those challenges are not only professional exercises; they’ve become integral to how Susan experiences and expands her own creativity. As she stretches into exhibitions, where jewelry is made not explicitly to be sold, but to be appreciated as art in its own right, Susan is more committed than ever to her craft. “I can’t yet imagine myself or my life without this daily practice.”
Efrat Koppel an arts writer and lifelong arts lover and practitioner. Efrat writes about local artists, creative process, and the role of place in shaping artistic identity. When not writing, Efrat is involved with Dane County Food Collective, supporting food systems and community resilience in southern Wisconsin.
See more at susanrichteroconnelljewelry.com.
You can purchase Susan’s work at Abel Contemporary Gallery in Stoughton or
Milward Farrell Fine Art in Madison.