So many animals, so little time!
Hello! Our names are Virginia Widen and Edward Strawiak. We are based in the wonderful city of Montréal, and have been creating together as Stick Man for over twenty years. We are mostly self-taught when it comes to silversmithing, although we both have backgrounds in fine arts. We started out by selling our jewellery on a street corner. On a whim, we introduced a line of stick drawings on oxidized copper, and suddenly we couldn't keep up with demand. Our designs have evolved since then, but animals are still our main inspiration. It's been many years since we abandoned that street corner, focusing more on craft shows and small shops and galleries. Then Etsy came along and gave us a whole new way to connect with customers all over the world. That has been amazing!
Our jewellery may look simple, but it can take weeks to whittle an idea down to the simple lines that will work in metal. Once a design is ready to make the transition from paper to metal, we fabricate a master using traditional silversmithing techniques. A mold is then made from the master, and the pieces are cast in silver using the lost wax process. There's a surprising amount of work involved in cleaning up and finishing the castings, and we do all of that in our workshop. Putting so much time and care into each piece, it feels like we're sending off a little bit of ourselves with each and every order.
