Sussy-Rose Shields placed two stones on a piece of metal and with a pair of scissors cut two pieces from the sheet.
She then hammered the two small pieces, put texture on them, and soldered the pieces. Shields was in the middle of making two dangle earrings for a customer at her shop at the Riverview Mill in Wilton on Friday afternoon.
Shields has been making jewelry for 45 years now. She said a friend of hers got her interested in jewelry making when she was studying to become an architect at a college in California. Shields never received her degree in architecture and ended up moving to Oklahoma instead where she taught herself how to make jewelry.
Now she owns a little store in the mill building called Sussy-Rose Shields Jewelry Studio. She makes jewelry, sells it, and teaches classes in the little studio river-side studio. Shields says you can also find her work at League of New Hampshire Craftsmen fairs and at various shops across the state.
As for Shields, she doesn’t end up wearing jewelry too often.
“I had a friend who came in and she was sitting there and she said, ‘you know, you never wear jewelry,’” Shields said. “I think my personality type is very tomboy. So I don’t usually wear jewelry. I wear it when I’m doing shows or something like that. But I just don’t think about it.”
She is more into the production and technique of the craft than adorning herself with the finished project.
“That’s what gets me excited,” she said about making the jewelry.