Michelle Pajak-Reynolds could not escape her destiny as a jewelry artist. Two years prior to her birth, Michelle’s parents met over the jewelry counter of a department store, and for the duration of her prenatal and early childhood years, Michelle’s mother worked as a jewelry clerk. Despite tough times in the early eighties, her parents worked hard to ensure that Michelle had an ample supply of pop-beads and jelly bracelets (her favorites were the ones with liquid and glitter floating in them… who’s weren’t?) She spent countless hours stringing together beads and art objects in front of the after-school airing of Wonder Woman; as a teenager she consistently ditched study hall for the jewelry tools in the art room. By the time she entered the first floor metals studio at Kent State University in 1995 she only had eyes for art.
Soaring through six years of intensive design, metals, textiles and fine arts coursework, Michelle graduated from Kent State University in 2001, magna cum laude. Backed by university mentors, Kathleen Browne and Maria Phillips, she proceeded to take the gallery world by storm. Within five years of graduating, Michelle was supporting herself as an independent artist, showing and selling her work from Santa Monica to New York, and receiving accolades from such illustrious institutions as SOFA and the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon.
As her avid passion for the arts spread into the rest of her professional and personal life, Michelle found herself teaching and serving time with various arts organizations, including Ursuline College, The Akron Art Museum, and the Ohio Arts Council. Eager to deepen her knowledge of the jewelry world from the inside-out, she recently began her first year as a Masters candidate for Baldwin Wallace’s Entrepreneurship program.
Whether Michelle Pajak-Reynolds is behind a book or behind a sewing machine, teaching class, or running a business, one thing is certain: this Wonder Woman continually strives to fulfill her destiny— as a jeweler of wearable art.
