About the Artist

Carol Korte received her B.S. in 1990 and her M.S. in Biology in 1991, both from Northern Illinois University, and moved to State College, Pennsylvania in 1992, where she currently resides. Carol was always involved in arts and crafts of all kinds, and in 2004, as a stay-at-home mom with four young children, she began learning jewelry-making techniques. She soon found the art of chainmaille, creating chains by weaving individual rings together, and was hooked. She opened Korte Jewelry Designs in 2014.

In 2017, Carol discovered the art of chasing and repousse, an ancient forming and sculpting process using small tools and a hammer. She was lucky to study with two of the top chasing experts in the world, Liza Nechamkin and Davide Bigazzi, and is constantly looking for opportunities to learn more. She says, “I love the process of bringing an image within the metal to the surface. This is a laborious technique, with thousands upon thousands of hammer strikes for each image, but each piece is truly a labor of love.”

Always striving to learn and better herself, Carol completed a jewelry apprentice program through Jewellery Training Solutions in 2020 - 2021. This program focuses on traditional jewelry-making and stone setting skills, and prepares one for a job in the commercial jewelry industry. She also started studying engraving, taking a class in early 2020, from J.J. Roberts at J.J. Roberts School of Artistic Engraving, and has taken a number of online engraving classes with Wes Griffin at Texas Engraving School. She was very excited to travel to Florence, Italy in 2022, to participate in a class with a master goldsmith. learning traditional Florentine techniques. In 2024, she took a diamond setting course with Ian Barnard through The Microsetting Academy.

“My work is strongly inspired by the natural world, and also by the use of traditional metalworking techniques. I truly believe that by using these time-intensive, yet meditative methods to express my awe and admiration of the beauty in nature, there is an energy that emanates from each piece I create, almost a soul. It is my wish that the wearer connects with that energy and that the piece becomes their personal touchstone. Nothing makes me happier than to know one of my beloved pieces is worn and treasured, and hopefully passed to future generations.”