Part 3: Expanding Horizons

Besides her jewelry making, Oneisom is always on the lookout for more ways to expand her craft. “I have this incredible desire to capture the beauty around me, especially the mountains in the fall, so I want to paint. I also want to explore shapes (sculpting) and color (quilting). I am always inspired by the work of artists. Seeing what they create makes me want to try new things.”

Lately, she’s been trying her hand at sculpture with classes from resident artist Cecelia Pippin at the William King Museum. “I took another class from Cecelia, and I did a bust of my grandmother. It wasn’t perfect, but it was her, and my family could see her in it. That was awesome.”

Looking toward the future, Oneisom has more goals in mind for her creations. “I’d like to create some masculine jewelry. I have 2 sons and 3 grandsons. I’d like to make things that would appeal to them, too,” she says. Whatever Oneisom comes up with next, you’re sure to find it in The Looking Glass Museum Store.

Part 2: The Task at Hand

When embarking on a new piece, she approaches the task with a part of her past involved. “An idea sort of pops into my head, and I come up with a plan to make it happen. That’s the ex-engineer in me.” She works with a wide variety of mediums, but she says glass is her favorite. “I love the way light plays in all the colors, but it is the least forgiving medium.” She also works heavily with beads. “Beads are fun too. There’s so much variety, and you can play with them.  If you don’t like what you created, one snip, and you can start again.”

One of our most popular items in The Looking Glass Store is Oneisom’s wrap bracelets. They retail for $5 and are always different. “I have a giant bowl (1’ in diameter, 8” high), and I fill it with beads - all kinds of beads. I mix them all up and use a scoop to pull out a bunch, and I start stringing them. Sometimes I’m hit with a theme - usually a color. I love color. Sometimes I just put on whatever bead my hand touches first.”

Oneisom prefers making necklaces and bracelets, but her two favorite pieces are very specific. “I have two favorite pieces of jewelry that I’ve made. The first is a necklace with carved stone leaves that were in one of my first bulk bead purchases. The second one was a custom piece I made for my client to wear to a wedding. It was the first piece I did that combined my dichroic glass and beadwork. It inspired a whole line of other pieces,” she says.

Part 1: Fine Art

Upon viewing any number of Erin Oneisom’s delicate, beautiful accessory creations, the United States Armed Forces would be one of the last things to come to mind. Oneisom spent a good amount of time as an engineer for the United States Armed Forces designing roads and airfield pavements and as a project manager in a housing renovation and replacement program in Germany. Obviously, she’s not your normal crafter.

With an extensive background in mathematics and sciences, Oneisom grew up all over the US with parents who were in the Air Force. Oneisom says she was fast tracked into the math and science realm and never given a chance to take art classes throughout school even though she was interested in all art forms, including painting, sculpture, dance, theater, music, and cooking. As a child, reading was a must as her mother was a librarian, and Oneisom frequented art history, craft, Shakespeare, and sci-fi genres in the library.

When her career hit a particularly stressful time, she turned to art. In Panama City, FL, she began taking glass and pottery classes, allowing her a form of release. “I would come home in the evenings and create. It kept me sane,” she says.

Now living in a cottage in Damascus, VA, Oneisom has turned almost completely to craft. She has a small room in her home dedicated to her art work. She says the room “is wall to wall, ceiling to floor, chock full of materials stored in labeled drawers, shelves, and cases.  My computer is on one wall and I do sometimes use it for design ideas.  I have a table on another wall that I use for staging mostly.” It is here that she creates the beautiful earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and pins that are for sale in the Looking Glass Museum Store inside of the William King Museum.