Montana Agate Spikes

4.8 x 0.6 x 1.3 cm

Montana agate set in sterling silver

Traditional silversmithing techniques. Hand fabrication with cast cuttlefish texture detail.

Tamara Martz is a Fairbanks, Alaska-based metalsmith working primarily in sterling silver and semiprecious stones. Her work explores the reconciliation of opposites: strength and delicacy, chaos and calm, rawness and refinement. Through jewellery, she seeks to create pieces that hold tension and balance simultaneously, offering the wearer a quiet sense of steadiness amid life's unpredictability.

Originally earning a BFA in photography in New Zealand, Martz brings a photographer's eye to her metalsmithing practice. Attention to composition, contrast, negative space, and light informs each design. After relocating to Alaska, she began taking metalsmithing classes in Fairbanks, where she discovered her true creative medium. Over the past 20 years, she has continued to refine her craft, largely self-taught, developing a distinctive style grounded in exploration and intuition. 

Martz is drawn to the inherent dialogue between metal and stone. Sterling silver provides structure and strength, while distinctive stones introduce colour, texture, and organic unpredictability. Through fabrication, she allows these materials to converse—curving forms meeting angular lines, polished surfaces offsetting raw inclusions. Each piece becomes a meditation on balance, shaped by both intention and discovery.

Her jewellery is meant to be worn daily, absorbing experience and memory over time. By creating work that is durable yet expressive, Martz invites wearers to carry a tangible reminder of resilience and calm. Her pieces have been exhibited in juried shows at the Bear Gallery in Fairbanks, connecting her practice to the broader local arts community.