Addiction comes in many forms. Artists are addicts in the grip of a compelling love affair with their medium. Jennifer Lynn, 26, art major, is an artist with a passion. Her obsession is to create, to sit or stand in a trance for 12 hours without thinking of anything else except what she is doing with her hands.

She is stationed at her desk in the airy room of the jewelry design classroom. People hustle busily around her, sharing design ideas with their neighbors, dipping hunks of metal into basins filled with chemicals, heating and filing their creations to a workable temperature with a flame, but Lynn sits and scribbles bits of colored pencil around a stone in the middle of a piece of paper. She is determining what color will make the stone pop.

“I have always had an artists’ heart,” Lynn said. “I have always loved art. I have always loved to be involved, but I never really found my niche until now because I really feel at home with jewelry and working with metal and fire; it’s a lot of fun.”

Lynn works four jobs and goes to school full-time. She loves the challenge of designing something and working really hard for the idea to come to fruition.

“Jewelry design is tough, but for some reason, I can’t stop doing it,” she said. “There’s something in me that says go, go, go, do, do, do. I can’t sit at home and watch television, I have to be working constantly.”

Lynn’s career dream is to own her own custom engagement ring company.

“It’s going to be hard to make a career and survive off making jewelry, but it is possible,” Lynn said. “I need to get some advertising out there and start seriously networking, possibly get a small loan and hire someone to do my web site for me.”

This semester is Lynn’s third semester in the jewelry design program at EC. When Lynn misses a class she feels like she is going through withdrawals.

She is working on an assignment to create a piece from either copper or silver, but she is using both. The project is inspired by nature so she has chosen to make an orchid. The assignment is to make a pendant colored with prismacolors and Lynn is trying to plan out how she is going to hold the flower into the backing and design it so that it looks more interesting.

Lynn has some other ideas for the project: a cuff etched with acid so that it looks like an impression made of wood with a labrodorite stone in the center. She is hoping to finish the orchid today and she will work on the cuff tomorrow.The length of time it takes her to finish a project depends on what she is making.

“I am trying to learn from my mistakes and really find a way to create jewelry flawlessly with as few complications as possible,” Lynn said.

Lynn shows me some of the rings she has made in the class and points out the flaws.

“I think another year in this program at EC will propel me to a different level in jewelry design,” Lynn said.

Lynn has decided to stay on another year in the jewelry design program so that she can absorb as much as she can and then transfer to a university. I feel that once I get into university, I will feel on the verge of being to really make great pieces; where the creativity just flows,” Lynn said.

For more information on Lynn’s designs go to her web site, www.jens-jewels.com.