Lia is a jewelry designer from Louisville, KY. Her Etsy Shop is Omg! Lia? She has pink hair, hairy legs, and a nose piercing. She is 18 years old and is a feminist, politically active, and environmentally/socially concious, also she try to incorporate these mentalities into her work.

Below you will find some interview questions Lia answered for me:

• Please describe your creative process

I’m forced to craft in my room. Because my sewing machine takes up the only available desk space, my crafting area is my bed. All of the magic happens …. on my bed. Yup. The benefit of this is that it forced me to get super organized, so all of my crafting stuff is portable so I can take it home on breaks!
I mainly use plastic beads and buttons - LOVE buttons - in my jewelry. Everything I create is bright, colorful, and unique. I also am obsessed with political magazine wallets made from BITCH magazine covers, Harry Potter covers and brand name advertisements! Clear duct tape is my other lover (sssh, don’t tell the bf)!

• Where do your ideas come from?

Everything bright, funky, and colorful inspires me. One of my button earrings was created after I hiked to the top of Mount Holyoke (the mountain!) in October and was awestruck by the beauty of the New England fall foliage. I create a lot of rainbow-inspired jewelry, and try to make things that I - or a girl similar to me - would want to wear! I’m inspired just by being at college, all of the funky outfits and political rallies and everything that go on here!

• How did you get into your craft?

I’ve been selling what I create since I was 5- though back then, it was yarn bracelets, and I was hawking them to my parent’s friends. I’ve been knitting since I was 12 and cutting up t-shirts since I was 13. Oddly, the items I’m focused on now - jewelry making and wallet making - didn’t come until I was 16/17.
Making jewelry was a completely unexpected epiphany for me. Literally, one day I sat down with some clip-on earrings and decided to turn them into pierced earrings for my newly pierced ears. During the process of deconstructing them I kept coming up with ways to make them better, and soon I’d turned all of my jewelry into earrings! Instead of keeping them, I listed them on my Etsy account. I haven’t worn interesting jewelry since Everything I make, I sell!

• Apart from creating things, what do you do?

I go to college full time, so that’s big I enjoy running and exercising, at home I’m mostly hanging out with my wonderful boyfriend (why yes, long distance does suck.) During the summer, I’m always busy with a demandingly active job - last summer I worked on an organic farm, this summer I’m a camp counsellor! (Wooo, I might get a tan! Maybe.) I also play cello and rant about feminism a lot, and read non-fiction.

• How do you promote your work?

My favorite venues to promote on are Myspace and Livejournal. They’re mostly utilized by my target clientele -namely, chicks like me - so they get me a lot of business. My myspace has a ton of friends who all seem interested when I post bulletins and whatnot, and I’m in a zillion selling communities over at livejournal. I also have a blog, and a flickr.

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