Miranda Hope

Miranda Hope thinks of herself as both a jeweler, and a sculptor who just happens to work in gold, brass, and stone. Her work stems from a love of gemstones, and each piece begins with the stone itself - its asymmetry, its imperfections - and that leads the direction of each piece.

She grew up along the northern coast of California, where an early fascination with handmade crafts led her to study sculpture at California College of the Arts in Oakland. She built her own curriculum across the sculpture and jewelry departments, merging the two disciplines into a single process, and began her first line of wearable sculpture while still in school.

After graduating in 2008, she apprenticed with goldsmith Paula Bailey Brent, whose use of raw, minimally processed gemstones alongside sculpted metalwork left a lasting mark on her.

In 2010 she moved to New York City to launch her own line featuring oversized raw gemstones, hand-forged metalwork, and hammered textures. She spent five years building the line before relocating to Los Angeles, where she still designs and hand-makes every piece.

In 2022, she shifted to primarily lost-wax casting, hand-sculpting each piece in wax before it's cast in metal through her network of collaborators in the Los Angeles jewelry district. The stones she sets span an entire spectrum of geologically fascinating minerals in their raw form, alongside a medley of cut and faceted gems. That contrast, rough against polished, is an unexpected reminder of where fine gemstones actually come from.

Every piece is one-of-a-kind, made to be an heirloom, and nods to the ancient traditions of handcrafted adornment that first drew her to this work. Jewelry is certainly a craft, but sometimes it is also an art.