Before becoming a jewelry maker, Megan Kirkpatrick was a field botanist. At first glance, these two professions might seem unrelated– but one look at Kirkpatrick’s creations and the overlap becomes clear. As the owner of Linnaea Jewelry, Kirkpatrick transforms found flora and fauna into one-of-a-kind wearable art, allowing her customers to carry a piece of the PNW with them wherever they go.
“I had this interest in electroforming as an idea of preserving plant specimens that I could wear,” she says. “And it seemed like I had a knack for it. It really quickly grew into this idea of wearable herbarium; all these botanical specimens that I collected, they could be something that you could wear that connected you to the Pacific Northwest.”
The name Linnaea refers to the Linnaean system of biological taxonomy, which is only appropriate given Kirkpatrick’s work: She immortalizes everything from cedar fronds to dragonflies, cicadas, and even bones in a permanent copper encasement.
Kirkpatrick describes her electroforming process as “a collision of art and science.” With the application of a low-voltage current, she applies dissolved copper particle by particle to the surface of her specimens. Kirkpatrick is completely self-taught, and she sources copper from leftover wiring in her house (which– unsurprisingly– she built herself).
“A lot of people think [my process is] casting, because it looks very similar,” Kirkpatrick says. “But one of the main differences between electroforming and casting is that the item is still in there. And each one is a one-of-a-kind piece, because you’re not just making a cast and then refilling that again. Each one is the actual leaf or the actual bone.”
All of Kirkpatrick’s specimens are legally and ethically collected. In addition to her botany experience, Kirkpatrick is “avid rock collector” and “obsessive backpacker,” and most of the items she electroforms are found during her own outdoor explorations. On occasion, customers will even bring their own specimens for Kirkpatrick to electroform, adding an additional layer of meaning to each piece.
Some items are simple, such as ginkgo pendants and rosebud earrings; other creations are far more intricate. In one example, Kirkpatrick found a years-old coyote skeleton surrounded by mushrooms and snake skin while weed-whacking her own property. Where others might only see death, Kirkpatrick saw an opportunity for a new kind of creation.
“I thought about how all these things work together: The coyote went back into the earth, which grew all the plants that provide a passageway for the snake that shed its skin,” Kirkpatrick says. “I did a piece that was a coyote rib bone. It was wrapped with snake skin, and it was bursting with all these flowers and fungi to show that process.”
Moving forward, Kirkpatrick would like to allow more time for this kind of exploration, and to make some of her more “wild” pieces into wall art rather than just jewelry. But whatever she chooses to try next, she’s certain to have an eager audience– week after week, her pieces have proven to be a hit at the Bellingham Farmers Market.
“I have something for everybody. You might not be into some of the bone stuff, but everybody loves plants, you know what I mean?” Kirkpatrick says. “I think that’s a commonality that we all have [in Bellingham]– that connection with nature and place. All of us do want a piece of that with us, which I think is why the reception has been so positive.” Bellingham, linnaeajewelry.com
