The artist behind the jewelry

Hi, I’m Abby.

Artist. Goldsmith. Collector of unusual stones. Lifelong maker of things.

I’m the artist behind Mettle by Abby, a collection of one-of-a-kind fine jewelry handcrafted in Woodstock, Georgia.

I’ve been making and selling jewelry since 2002, earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jewelry & Metals from Winthrop University in 2010, and launched Mettle by Abby that same year. I established my independent studio in 2017.

I work with natural gemstones, solid 14k gold, and Argentium sterling silver, creating jewelry that’s a little unexpected, full of character, and made to last.

I love color, unusual materials, interesting people, and a really good story.

And I believe the things we wear can become part of the stories we tell.

CHAPTER 01

It Started with Color

I’ve been telling stories with color since long before I knew how to work with gold.

When I started making jewelry as a teenager, I worked mostly with glass beads. I had some natural gemstones, too, and I loved collecting antique beads, but glass was where I began. No plastic. I wanted the real thing.

I was fascinated by color combinations and the feelings they could create.

Black and red might become something dark, romantic, and a little dramatic. White and silver could feel light and angelic. Greens, blues, and purples reminded me of peacock feathers or something mystical. Sometimes I wanted a whole rainbow. Other times I wanted the colors of summer, bright and cheerful.

I’d build the shapes and patterns around whatever mood I was imagining.

I collected beads everywhere I went. On vacation, I’d look up bead shops and ask my mom to take me. I was always looking for something unusual, something I hadn’t seen before.

I still have those beads, organized by color.

And in a funny way, I’m still doing exactly the same thing. Only now I’m collecting natural gemstones and building their settings from metal instead of stringing them together.

CHAPTER 02

My First Customers

At first, I made jewelry because I wanted to wear it.

Then people started asking where I’d gotten it.

When I told them I’d made it myself, they’d ask if I could make something for them, too.

I worked at a barbecue restaurant, and I met customers through conversations about the jewelry I was wearing. Sometimes those customers became friends. Sometimes those friends became customers. Often, both.

I think I charged about $5 for earrings and $10 for necklaces, which makes me laugh now because these days my earrings can cost more than my necklaces. But back then, a necklace meant beads all the way around your neck. Of course it cost more!

My mom was a substitute teacher, and she’d take my jewelry to school, set it up in the teachers’ lounge, and sell it for me.

I made surprisingly good money for a teenager. More importantly, the money funded my growing bead collection, which meant I could make more jewelry.

It was a pretty wonderful cycle.

And I was learning something that would stay with me: making jewelry was exciting, but making something another person connected with was even better.

CHAPTER 03

A China Hutch, a Piano, and a Hammer

My first jewelry workspace was a china hutch in our living room.

I’d pull down a little drawer, turn on my work light, and get to work. The hutch sat beside our piano, where I practiced for at least an hour a day.

Music was a huge part of my life. I studied classical piano for years, played guitar and keyboard in church, and performed with a youth praise band that toured for a week each summer.

I was constantly surrounded by art, music, and opportunities to make something.

Eventually, I started taking art classes in high school, moved into AP art, and developed a portfolio about mushrooms. I’ve always liked the unusual things.

But one of the biggest revelations came when I discovered what I could do with a piece of metal wire and a hammer.

I could change its shape. Flatten it. Curve it. Create something that didn’t exist before.

Until then, so much of my jewelry depended on the beads, findings, and components I could buy.

Suddenly, I realized I didn’t have to be limited by what someone else had made.

I could make the jewelry people were looking for that wasn’t there.

That realization changed everything.

I wanted to learn every technique I could. I wanted more tools in my toolbox, more ways to turn an idea into something real.

And I wanted to make things for people—specific people, with their own tastes, personalities, and stories.

CHAPTER 04

Learning to Make What I Imagined

For a while, I thought I might study psychology. I’ve always been interested in people, in understanding them, and in finding ways to make life a little better.

But when I realized I could study jewelry and metalsmithing professionally, the direction became clear.

I received a scholarship to Winthrop University, and with help from my mom and dad, I pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jewelry & Metals.

My parents never treated art as an impractical dream. My dad was an electrical engineer, but he never questioned my decision to go to art school. My mom had already been helping me sell jewelry for years.

Their support gave me the freedom to take my work seriously.

At Winthrop, I learned fabrication, metalsmithing, design, and the technical skills that allowed my ideas to become increasingly ambitious.

And every Valentine’s Day, the jewelry and metals students held a sale.

I loved those sales.

I’d spend the summer working in a restaurant and saving money so I could focus on school during the academic year. But when the jewelry sale came around, I was all in.

I’d already been selling jewelry for years, and I had a pretty good understanding of what people liked, how to work efficiently, and how to price my pieces.

Those sales were enormously successful for me. They also confirmed something I already suspected: I didn’t just love making jewelry. I loved making a living making jewelry.

CHAPTER 05

The Jeweler Who Passed Me the Torch

In the summer of 2009, before my senior year of college, my brother introduced me to an opportunity that would change my career.

He worked at a cigar shop near David Douglas Diamonds & Jewelry in Marietta. One of the jewelers, James, would walk over on his lunch breaks, and the two got to know each other.

My brother suggested I go talk to him.

I did.

James and the owner, Doug, offered me something I couldn’t have gotten in a classroom: the chance to come in early, watch James work, and learn from him.

I showed up in the mornings and watched him size rings, set diamonds, retip prongs, repair broken jewelry, and solve problems that only years of experience could teach you to solve.

He explained what he was doing, why he was doing it, and what he’d learned along the way.

I learned how gold behaved. I learned how fine jewelry was constructed. I saw what happened to pieces that had been worn for decades.

That experience taught me to think beyond how jewelry looks when it’s brand new.

How will it feel against someone’s skin? How will it hold up? How will the setting wear over time? Can it be maintained and repaired?

Those questions still influence the way I make jewelry.

James had even made some of his own tools to make particular jobs easier. He showed me tricks that weren’t in any textbook.

But what I remember most is something he told me about teaching.

“I’m teaching you because someone taught me.”

He believed that knowledge should be passed along, that one generation of jewelers had a responsibility to help the next.

I’ve taken on apprentices of my own over the years, and now I understand just how generous he was with his time.

James also told me that one of the marks of a good jeweler is being able to fix your own mistakes.

I still think about that whenever something goes wrong at my bench and I figure out how to make it right.

He became a close friend, someone I could talk to about work, faith, life, and the inevitable frustrations of learning a difficult craft.

I’m grateful for him to this day.

CHAPTER 06

September 2010: Mettle by Abby Begins

When I returned to David Douglas over Christmas break in 2009, I was given more hands-on work: wax injections, casting, polishing, finishing, and preparing jewelry for the display cases.

I graduated from Winthrop in the spring of 2010.

That fall, Doug offered me the opportunity to create my own jewelry collection for the store.

It was an extraordinary opportunity for a young artist. I had the skills and ideas, but I certainly didn’t have a personal inventory of gold, diamonds, and gemstones.

Doug did.

He gave me access to materials, tools, and a jeweler’s bench. Some of the tools had belonged to his father. He even took me shopping to fill in the gaps.

I worked whenever there was an available bench, sometimes using Doug’s and sometimes James’s.

In September 2010, Mettle by Abby officially launched.

The first piece to sell was made with silver, gold, and a diamond.

It sold within an hour of being placed in the case—before the launch event even started.

I took that as a pretty encouraging sign.

Year after year, the collection grew. Sales increased, I spent more time making jewelry, and I continued learning what worked, what customers connected with, and how to make better pieces.

Doug always believed I could build something substantial. He encouraged me to think big and recognized that I loved both sides of the business: creating jewelry and connecting with the people who bought it.

That combination has shaped my career ever since.

CHAPTER 07

Building a Life Around Jewelry

Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Malachi.

We’d known each other through the jewelry world for years. He’d spent time learning computer-aided jewelry design from another jeweler at David Douglas, and our paths crossed long before we became a couple.

We married in November 2018.

We came home from our honeymoon and almost immediately headed to a jewelry show in Atlanta.

Romantic, right? We certainly think so.

We genuinely loved doing shows together. We spent the next year traveling, meeting people, talking about jewelry, and growing the business.

By then, I’d established my independent studio in 2017, with Malachi’s help, and Mettle by Abby was becoming a bigger part of our lives.

Then COVID arrived, and the shows stopped.

Like so many small businesses, we had to adapt.

And soon, life was changing in another enormous way.

CHAPTER 08

Motherhood, Mettle, and Making Room for Life

Our daughter was born in February 2022, and our son arrived two years later.

I knew motherhood would change my life. I didn’t fully understand just how much.

Pregnancy was exhausting. Recovering and adjusting to life with a baby took time. There were stretches when I couldn’t work the way I was used to working.

But my customers were patient. They supported me. They came back when I came back.

And the business I’d spent so many years building did something remarkable for our family.

It gave us flexibility.

It gave us room to care for our children, to recover, to adjust, and to find our footing without having to abandon the work we’d built our lives around.

I am deeply grateful for that.

As our children have gotten older, I’ve been finding my way back into a fuller working rhythm, and it feels wonderful.

I’m also learning new ways to connect with customers online. That hasn’t always come naturally to me. I’m much more comfortable with a torch than a computer, or face to face than a phone.

But I love learning, and I love meeting people. Building relationships through the internet has challenged me in unexpected ways, and it’s exciting to realize how many more people I can reach.

In some ways, I’m still that teenager talking to customers at a barbecue restaurant about the jewelry I’m wearing.

The conversations just happen in more places now.

CHAPTER 09

What I Hope My Children Learn

My parents gave me something invaluable: the freedom to discover what I loved and pursue it seriously.

I want to give my children that same freedom.

I want them to know that they have something unique to bring into the world. That their interests matter. That they can work hard, learn difficult things, and build a life that reflects who they are.

My husband and I always say that if one of our children wants to be an ostrich farmer, a school bus driver, a brain surgeon, or a rocket scientist, we’re going to support them… heck… we almost started an ostrich farm ourselves at one point…

You can’t do everything, but you can do anything.

I hope they grow up seeing that meaningful work doesn’t have to look one particular way.

And I hope they see that making something beautiful, useful, or meaningful for someone else is a worthwhile way to spend a life.

CHAPTER 10

I’ve Always Loved Stories

There are books all over my house.

I’m usually reading at least one or two, listening to audiobooks while I work, or getting lost in a movie or a piece of music that tells a particularly good story.

I love stories that build whole worlds. Stories that unfold slowly. Stories with atmosphere, mystery, beauty, and unexpected turns.

And I’ve come to realize that I approach jewelry in much the same way.

Sometimes I start with a color combination and a feeling. Sometimes a gemstone reminds me of a landscape, a storm, a night sky, or some place that might exist in another world.

I use metal, texture, shape, and color to build around that feeling.

But the most interesting part is that I never get to finish the story.

Once a piece leaves my studio, it becomes part of somebody else’s life.

It might mark an anniversary. It might celebrate a new beginning. It might be given in gratitude, in love, or in memory of someone who’s gone.

I’ve heard extraordinary stories about the places my jewelry has ended up and what it has meant to the people who wear it.

One woman told me about a friend whose father had recently died. They were talking when the grieving woman looked at her friend’s necklace and smiled.

Her friend told her it was the first time she’d seen her smile in months.

Then she took off the necklace and gave it to her.

I think about that story often.

I think about the people who have told me that a piece of jewelry helped them express something they couldn’t find the words to say.

And on Christmas morning or Mother’s Day, I sometimes take a moment to imagine all the people opening something I made.

I don’t get to see those moments. I don’t get to hear all the stories.

But I know they’re happening.

And that is an extraordinary feeling.

One of my favorite events was a red carpet celebration at David Douglas. We invited customers to bring back jewelry I'd made for them over the years and created a museum-style exhibition, displaying the pieces alongside their owners' names. It was extraordinary to see so much of my work gathered together again, but even more extraordinary to see the people who had made those pieces part of their lives. It wasn't just a collection of jewelry anymore. It was a collection of stories. That was my last big event at David Douglas, and it's one I'll always remember.

CHAPTER 11

Still Making, Still Learning

More than two decades after I first started stringing glass beads together, I still get excited about color.

I still collect unusual stones. I still experiment with shapes. I still love figuring out how to make something I’ve never made before.

And I still love meeting the people who connect with my work.

Today, I create one-of-a-kind fine jewelry in my private studio in Woodstock, Georgia, using natural gemstones, solid 14k gold, and Argentium sterling silver.

I also create custom jewelry, including new designs that incorporate meaningful gemstones or give old gold a new life.

You can find my work online, at Art Jewelers in Woodstock, and at David Douglas Diamonds & Jewelry in Marietta.

Every piece is made by hand, one at a time.

And every piece is waiting for its next chapter.

Thanks for being part of the story.

Abby