Around Beautiful Things

Leslie O’Neill’s ideas emerge as elegantly worked beaded jewelry that she sells on the craft-fair circuit and out of her studio at Academy Square in Salisbury, CT.  

In the winter, after the holiday season, O’Neill works on her newest ideas. Her beaded earrings can best be described as delicate sculptures in matched sets. Some are three-dimensional flowers or tiny bird’s nests. Others reveal a subtle sense of humor, including pairs of petite tea cup earrings complete with dangling beaded drops of tea. In addition, she has  a wealth of traditionally-styled shimmering chandelier and drop earrings that add beauty to everyday life.

But nature, she says, is her deepest influence. The shapes of shells, seed pods, leaves and butterflies interest her, but what is highly notable in her work is the appearance of shifting colors in the way that Mother Nature paints the world around us.  

O’Neill grew up outside of Chicago. Her mother, an art teacher, took the family to see the important artwork the city offered. O’Neill  describes feeling overshadowed by her mother’s wide-ranging skills in every conceivable art medium. Preferring a more precise and symmetrical approach to life, O’Neill did not expect to make a career in art. However, after college, she moved to Europe with a jewelry-maker. While assisting him in his studio, she soon discovered that her own designs and pieces were attracting customers. She began to follow her own path, and soon moved back home where she worked for costume jewelry companies in Boston and New York City. After a prestigious one-year internship in the Metropolitan Museum’s department of American Decorative Arts, she worked for a company that dealt in antique silver. O’Neill’s eyes glow as she describes her joy at handling, and being surrounded by, beautiful objects all day long, every day. 

Her studio space in one of the shops  at Academy Square is called Our Studio, a space shared four artists.

Leslie O’Neill can be contacted at lsoneill@mac.com.