Rock & Shoal Beads is a collection of one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces, handmade by artist Gretchen Jennings. Using gorgeous semi-precious gem stone beads, vintage and antique beads from around the world, fairly traded metal and glass beads and personally found objects, Gretchen creates unique necklaces, bracelets and earrings.
What started as sharing an art studio with a friend in 2015 has blossomed into a jewelry-making business focused on traveling to music festivals where Rock & Shoal's booth has become a favorite to many festival goers, counterculture dancers, dressers, thinkers and lovers of beauty.
The Story Of ROCK & SHOAL
Gretchen’s Story
I have been stringing beads since 1972 when I used a needle and thread to string dogberries and bittersweet into a necklace to go with my new burgundy corduroy bellbottoms and paisley shirt for a 6th grade dance.
Rock & Shoal Beads is the fulfillment of the inspirations and creative ideas I have gathered in my travels around the globe. Everywhere I go I am awed by the use of stones, gems, metal, glass and other natural materials that people use to make meaningful, ceremonial and ethnic jewelry.
I make my jewelry from semi-precious gem stones and glass (glass is formed from silica found in sandy shoals) beads. I also love incorporating metals (BRASS!), bone (purchased from Native Americans who use road kill as a means to make bone beads) and found objects into my pieces. Many of my pieces have vintage jewelry parts as well.
I put my heart and soul into designing and making each piece.
A large mass of stone, a stone of any size, any gem, something resembling or suggesting a rock.
ROCK
A sand band or sand bar in the bed of a body of water, especially one that is exposed above the surface of the water at low tide.