ABOUT
Jennea Frischke Jewelry is a handcrafted jewelry line founded in 2011 by Calgary-based artist Jennea Frischke. Each piece is lovingly made using traditional metalsmithing techniques and is thoughtfully designed and crafted in her home studio.
Jennea has maintained an active studio practice since graduating from the Alberta College of Art & Design (now AUArts) in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction, majoring in Jewelry and Metals. She currently teaches introductory continuing education classes in the AUArts jewelry department, where she shares her knowledge and passion for metalsmithing with new generations of makers.
In addition to her jewelry work, she runs Birdseye Vintage, a vintage clothing and accessories business. You can find her curated collection online at www.birdseyevintage.com, as well as in Room 21 at Inside Avenue Antiques in Calgary.
Her work has been featured in notable exhibitions, including Prairie Excellence, a juried traveling exhibition highlighting just twelve Alberta artists. She also held a solo exhibition titled Victorian Inclinations, developed through a travel grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts that enabled her to study Victorian mourning jewelry in London museums. In 2011, she was honored with the Alberta Craft Council Award of Achievement.
Jennea’s work blends sterling silver, gold, gemstones, wood, horsehair, vintage components, and other materials into one-of-a-kind jewelry and wearable art. She is deeply inspired by dreams, personal narrative, nostalgia, natural history, and the rich traditions of historical and mourning jewelry. Many of her recent pieces incorporate tiny animal bones, lovingly collected from owl pellets found during walks in Calgary’s natural spaces. These bones—often featuring delicate heart shapes—carry a deep personal connection to memory, grief, and the natural cycles of life and death.
Her jewelry often serves as a form of contemporary talisman: protective, symbolic, and deeply intimate. Through her materials and methods, Jennea seeks to transform personal and collective experiences of loss, recovery, and reverence for the natural world into wearable keepsakes.
When not at her bench, Jennea is a nature-walking, velvet-wearing B-movie enthusiast who collects vintage oddities, taxidermy, and the beautifully strange.
Portrait by Rachael Meckling