Artist seeks permanent home in Corning

It was love at first sight for Rachel Sims, who has been an artist-in-residence at the Corning Center for the Fine Arts since July 2007. She lives and creates her handmade jewelry in Corning, and would love for it to stay that way. There’s just one problem. The young artist needs to sell close to $70,000 of jewelry before the end of February. Sims took the artist-in-residence position in Corning after “googling” for studio space in Iowa. She had never even heard of the small Southwest Iowa town before, or lived in a community with fewer people than her high school. “The first day I arrived in town, I fell in love with a very old, very ‘in need of some love’ building,” said Sims. “It has a lot of character. It’s 110 years old and needs a lot of work.” With collapsing ceilings, 15 broken windows and the absence of a hot water heater, this Main Street building is why she is raising money. After a year of negotiation, the owner has finally agreed to sell it — in the next two months. “It’s perfect,” said Sims. “There is space downstairs for a studio. It’s really amazing.” Full circle Selling that amount of jewelry will take some determination, but that’s what got Sims to this point. Although she had never heard of Corning, Sims is not new to Iowa. Her family moved to West Des Moines when she was 13 years old. While attending Valley High School, Sims first started making jewelry. “I tried everything,” Sims said. “I took woodworking, shop and photography, but I didn’t want to be welding giant pieces of metal so I decided on jewelry.” After graduation, she studied to be a jeweler at the Rhode Island School of Design and pursued a master’s degree at the Creative Academy in Milan, Italy. This led her to Geneva, Switzerland, where she worked as a watch designer for Vacheron Constantin. Sims may have been thousands of miles from the cornfields of Iowa, but she found similarity in Switzerland. “Geneva is so international,” said Sims. “There are people coming and going from all over; countries that I hadn’t even heard of. If you take a train 20 minutes out of town you were in the middle of nowhere. Just like Corning.” Not Kay jewelry The United States is where she wanted to start her jewelry business, and the Corning artist-in-residence position gave her that opportunity. Sims currently lives in the Center for the Fine Arts and works in the gallery. “My job is to make arts, except that I’m not getting paid to do it,” said Sims. These arts are handmade glass beads and silver rings, which Sims calls “contemporary, organic, vibrant and fun with bright vivid colors.” Finished products range from necklaces to earrings, rings and bracelets. Even beads in the shapes of animals like frogs and chickens, which “kids love” are available. “It definitely isn’t Kay Jewelers jewelry,” she said. “I try to make something for everybody.” Everyone except males, because Sims said there isn’t anything for guys. “I just like to make pieces and hopefully find audiences who enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them,” said Sims. An artist’s life Sims supports herself by creating for art shows, selling jewelry to galleries or individuals and instructing jewelry-making classes. According to Sims, she works on art whenever she isn’t eating or sleeping. This includes publicity, marketing, photography and maintaining her Web site, www.fuzzishu.etsy.com. Her jewelry can be purchased on the Web site, at the Corning Center for the Fine Arts, Elements Limited in Des Moines and Gallery Imago Dei in Fairfield. Sims is also a regular at the Iowa State Fair and has work displayed at Clarksville Pottery and Gallery in Austin, Texas. For now, her goal remains to sell enough jewelry to purchase a “home” in the town she has grown to love. “Everything is local here,” Sims said. “It’s fantastic. I’ve always wanted to live in a rural town.” Sims is even optimistic about the future should she fail to reach her goal. “If I don’t sell enough jewelry, at least people will have heard of it,” said Sims. “An artist’s life is kind of up in the air.” —————— Tyler Ellyson can be reached at (641) 782-2141 ext. 236 or tellyson@crestonnews.com