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 Eni Oken
Master Wire Artist
My first career calling was to design and create jewelry. I used to collect colorful pieces of wire found inside telephone cable and make bracelets and rings, and sell them at the beach of my home town in Brazil. But since I was only 10 or 12 at the time, I promptly ignored that calling and when time came to choose a career, I went to Architectural school. It wasn’t a complete break-off, since I had tried every single possible fine arts and crafts possible, including model making and sculpture, but it was not what I was meant to do.
After graduating, I realized traditional Architecture and construction had very little to do with me and switched to the booming career of computer graphics for video games, where I could use my architectural skills to create virtual worlds. Nevertheless, the environments I created were covered with jewels, glittering stones and gold. That period lasted 17 years.
In 2000 I finally decided to work full time with jewelry – all along I had kept it just as a hobby. My
 primary material of choice is wire, which is incredibly versatile since it can be manipulated like fiber, but has the resilience and preciousness of metal. At the time wire wrapping was being elevated to boutique quality by many jewelry designers such as Dana Kellin, Ten Thousand Things and Me & Ro. I also respect enormously the work of Lynne Merchant and her ethnic designs.
The techniques I use are loosely based on fiber arts such as embroidery, lace-making and basket-weaving, which were taught to me by my grandmother (who was also very much into crafts). I use primarily 28 ga wire to coil and create netted lace, trapping stones, charms and beads, preferring highly ornamental and whimsical designs.
If you look at some of my recent designs, the style remains pretty much the same as used in computer graphics, very ornamental and whimsical.
The creative process follows a very definite cycle for me, in any medium: Learn by experimenting and creating is first step. The second step is to teach what was learned, pass it along. And then back again to learning and experimenting.
Teaching has always been a fundamental part of the creative process – besides being extremely gratifying to give someone else the ability to create - it helps me to understand in depth why I do what I do, and with that deeper understanding, to acquire insights on how to adapt the techniques and designs in other ways.
When I was working with computer graphics, I was a fantasy design and color theory teacher, being one of the first people to explore distance e-learning through the web. After entering the jewelry business, I used that technical knowledge to spread information via the Web.
At first, I used the same formula as done in computer graphics, with interactive courses. But this industry is different and what proved to be a better solution was to offer individual and very specific lessons, or tutorials. Today, in 2008, I sell about 53 tutorials on my website, all downloadable in PDF electronic format. I’m also going through a serious expansion of my website to be a depository of information and tutorials for jewelry makers, not only written by me but by hopefully many masters in the crafting and jewelry making industry.
Website: www.enioken.com and coming soon: www.jewelrylessons.com
To see one of Eni’s sample project/tutuorial see the Herringbone Weave Click Here 
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