Meet the Instructors

Lisa Niven Kelly

Lisa has been designing jewelry for nineteen years and teaching for sixteen. She specializes in doing just about everything. She is an extraordinarily talented glass bead maker, wireworker, and seed bead artist. She spends her days managing her online wireworking shop, and her evenings designing kits and caring for her daughters.

Lisa teaches classes in wireworking and seed beads. Often her classes emphasize the design possibilities in combining the two media. Her hands-on experience with all aspects of the beading business (including managing a bead store) has taught her what it takes to facilitate a successful and fun workshop.

"Teaching brings me endless smiles. I love the excitement explosions in class, caused by learning to create something new with your hands. It is so inspiring to watch fellow beaders produce individual pieces of art, which will become the antiques and heirlooms of the future."

You can see many examples of her work online at www.lisanivenkelly.com and at her new business site, www.beaducation.com. Her latest passion or, more accurately, obsession, is wrought iron scroll work, which is inspiring a whole new design series. However, if you want to be allowed to register for the retreat, you must make a tremendous fuss about her most wonderful projects: her darling and adorable girls, Izzy (aged 7 1/2) and Lucy (aged 5).

Dallas Lovett

"I began my design practice in 1993 after completing a degree in fashion design at Woodbury University in Los Angeles. My formal training has, without a doubt, influenced the course of my work over the past ten years. It affects how I see and what I'm trying to achieve. In particular, my philosophy and approach to design is to take my chosen medium (wire wrapping and weaving) to a higher professional standard that I refer to as Jewelry Art. I am confident that my abilities as a designer and as an instructor will enhance the profession and bring it to a higher standard."

"Some have remarked that my work has an engineering feel. That's true as far as it goes, but my aesthetic is also natural in that it derives from the spare and sculptural landscape of my native Arizona. I strive to combine silver wire and beads (seed beads, pearls and semi-precious stones, or lampwork beads) to create three-dimensional forms in which all the parts relate harmoniously to each other and to the whole. And just like natural objects, each piece of jewelry I make is unique and individually 'handmade' in every way."

"My workshops are intense, but the intensity comes from the work itself, and not from my personality. A student who completes one of my workshops, even one the basic workshops, will have achieved self-confidence and will leave the workshop with a professional finished product. Because I had to make these techniques my own before I felt comfortable working with wire, I encourage each student's growth and further exploration."

Dallas is co-owner of Trade Wind Gallery, a jewelry and bead store in Phoenix, Arizona.

Barb Switzer

Barb Switzer is a wire and bead enthusiast and resident of the Redwoods of Northern California. She spends her time engineering new creations, graphic design, travel, time at home with her other half, Burt, in their house of happy pets.

Barb has taught at bead stores in Washington and California for the past ten years, and at Bead & Button, Bead Fest, and Bead Expo along with a number of stores across the U.S. This year marks her fifth project for the Hooked on Wire retreat in San Francisco with Dallas Lovett and Lisa Niven Kelly. Last October, she traveled to Kobe, Japan for her first international teaching experience, and has several projects planned with Step by Step Beads, Beadwork, and Stringing magazine.

Her classes and those of her favorite collaborators and pals are available for download from Beaducation.com. Check out www.beadswitzer.com, which features a gallery, calendar, and kits available for purchase.

If you have additional questions, or if you want to be added to the Hooked on Wire Retreat mailing list, please click here.

Last updated Sunday, April 6th, 2008