Jere Moskovitz

As a young girl Jere learned from her mother and grandmother how to knit and crochet, and she delighted in turning balls of yarn into something that could pass for clothes. Her specialty was making outfits for my Barbies and Trolls. It was some years later that Jere developed a passion for yarn itself. After earning a BFA in Apparel Design from the Rhode Island School of Design, Jere began a 20-year career in the apparel industry, reaching executive levels in knitwear sourcing and production. Her work took her to yarn mills, dye factories and yarn shows throughout Europe and Asia, where she was captivated by the aesthetic appeal of quality yarn: the expressiveness of its hues and textures, the allure of its look and feel, and the magic of mixing colors and textures to achieve an endless array of effects. These impressions stayed with her, influencing her recent decision to create textile-inspired jewelry by applying knitting and crochet techniques to copper wire. After initial attempts using traditional knitting needles and crochet hooks, Jere met with fiber artist Adrienne Sloane to learn wire knitting techniques that produce the clean, modern look she was after. Success immediately followed: Jere made her first knitted wire bubble cuff! That design, like all of Jere's current knitted jewelry, relies on one of Sloane’s special techniques. Jere uses copper wire for its malleability and embellishes her pieces with a broad assortment of Czech glass and Japanese seed beads. Her sourcing skills became key as she began her search for beads with just the right color and finish, and then later for the textiles she uses in her mixed media jewelry. Soon after Jere began showing her jewelry she was asked to create a woman’s kippah, a religious head covering. The response was tremendous and in 2011 Studio Jere was born. Jere's women’s wire kippot are distinctive in that they feature traditional knit and crochet stitches and are embellished with a unique assortment of carefully selected fibers or beads. In June 2012, Jere's kippot were selected for inclusion in Cover Thy Head, a juried exhibition of kippot and other head coverings at The Morris and Sally Justein Heritage Museum in Toronto, Canada. During the past year Jere has focused on enhancing and expanding her jewelry lines. She loves the natural shaping ability of wire and the opportunity to combine textile accents with beads for a multimedia effect. Jere also takes great care to select clasps and other components with clean, modern lines that match the simplicity of the wire forms.