About

  • Chelsea Nanfelt Rowe (b.1993, Bridgton, Maine) is a craft artist and jeweler currently based in Little Rock, AR (US). She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2024 and Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2018. Chelsea is a member of Ethical Metalsmiths, an internationally recognized non-profit. Involvement includes the Radical Jewelry Makeover (RJM): Artist Project, EM Education Committee, and EM Students. Recent exhibitions include the RJM: Artist Project Exhibition at the Metal Museum in Memphis, TN, REFINED Competition and Exhibition 2023 in Nacogdoches, TX, and the RJM: Artist Project Pop-Up Exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Modern Art in Raleigh, NC. She was also an invited speaker for the Chicago Responsible Jewelry Conference, representing the international annual juried exhibition and competition, So Fresh + So Clean 2023. Chelsea has received several awards, including the SNAG Educational Endowment Scholarship and Arts Council of the Valley’s Arts for Education Grant, and was a VCU Research Fund recipient. Her article, A New Ethics of Materials: Collective Material Impact, was published in Metalsmith Magazine. She has an upcoming residency at the Baltimore Jewelry Center in 2025.

  • I probe how objects act as intermediaries between people. These explorations reflect on the delicate navigation that happens when we intertwine our lives with others. My curiosities lie in the fuzzy aura of human life that encircles materials. Do our materials possess life or do we imbue and inject the materials in our world with personalities reflective of ourselves? My motivation is to highlight the stories infused in and witnessed by things we surround ourselves with and use daily.

  • Professional memberships:

    • Ethical Metalsmiths

      • RJM Artist Project (2019-present)

      • Education Committee (2021-present)

      • Emerging Jeweler Program (2021-22)

    • Precious Collective (2024-present)

    • Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) (2017-present)