Ms. Julie Rauschenberger has over 35 years of experience in the professional jewelry industry. This expert craftsperson started in the jewelry trade in 1976 with an apprenticeship for White Mfg. Jewelers in York, Pennsylvania. There, she learned all aspects of the business including original design, repair, polishing, and engraving. In 1980, she moved to Seattle and began working for Nielsen Mfg. Jewelers, a high profile jewelry manufacturing company. She quickly became an expert in the art of model making and wax carving. In 1985, Ms Rauschenberger became a successful independent jewelry artist. She carved wax models for many jewelry stores in the Seattle area and sold her own original designs at local venues.

Ms. Rauschenberger always had an intense fascination with granulation, an ancient technique used by the Etruscans and Greeks.  She spent many years studying this process on her own and in 1995 furthered her education at the Jewelry Arts Institute of New York City. Here, the time-honored process of granulation was further understood and she soon created her own original jewelry using this ancient method. The difficult and labor-intensive nature of granulation makes it an ambitious craft to master, but Ms. Rauschenberger succeeded in this art form.  In 1996 she won a prestigious Niche Award and has been written about extensively for her granulation jewelry in publications such as Ornament (1995), Lapidary Journal (April and May 1996), American Style (Sept. 1996), AJM (American Jewelry Manufacturing) cover and article (1998), Jewelry Connoisseur (2004), and also in the book, 500 Gemstone Jewels: A Sparkling Collection of Dazzling Designs, published by Lark Books in 2010.

In 2006, Ms. Rauschenberger began designing and creating her own line of gemstone lamps.  These works of art feature numerous beautiful stones including amethyst, ocean jasper, olivine, ruby in zoisite, and many others. In order to allow light to pass through these brilliant stones, she thinly slices them and puts them through a ten step polishing process. The gemstones are then applied to the lampshade using a traditional stained glass technique. When choosing the bases for the lamps, Ms Rauschenberger selects only unique, turn-of-the-century models made by Handel, and Bradley & Hubbard. Her gemstone lamps were profiled in Old House Journal article, “The Art of Illumination” (Feb. 2010).

In 2010, while continuing to carve waxes for the commercial trade in the traditional way, Ms. Rauschenberger decided to increase her skill set by learning to use Matrix – a 3-D jewelry design program. She is now fluent in this method of creation as well.

Recently, Ms. Rauschenberger has created seed bead jewelry out of 24 carat plated glass beads, seed pearls, and gemstones beads. These stunning creations also incorporate many of the gemstones used in her lamps to make pendants, earrings, and necklaces. The final pieces give the appearance of gold, but are feather-light and available at a fraction of the cost. Some of Ms. Rauschenberger’s favorite gemstones to utilize in her creations are rubies from the Longido Mine in Tanzania, amazonite from India, and chiastolite from China. Using these alluring stones from around the world to create unique and elegant original designs is Ms Rauschenberger’s lifelong passion.