maker
MOUNTAIN METALSMITH
CAMILLE WILD Words by Erin Phillips
windows at her art shows on Denver’s Santa Fe Street for First Fridays. She felt an immediate attraction to the art community and says, “I saw that expression of self is okay in that world, that you can take whatever avenue you want and be yourself.” But for a while, she wasn’t quite sure what her own place was in it. As a kid, Wild had been a dancer, doing everything from swing dancing at the Mercury Café in Denver to tap, jazz and ballet. She found expression through movement. And when she wasn’t honing a routine or fiddling with beads, she was outside playing amongst the Colorado rocks and trees. Something about the rocks had always captured her attention. In her teenage years she became a rock climber, and later, a mountain guide. While working as a mountain guide, she noticed there was a certain mold that guides were compelled to fit into. She wondered how to blend her own unique skill set and confidence into what was expected of her.
I
After a long tedious day of working, she f you listen closely to the wind that cuts
would pop down her Ford Ranger’s tailgate and
through the jagged alpine edges, you might
make jewelry. The process was meditative for
hear the gentle jingle of metal bouncing with
her, but much more important was the message
the cadence of a climber making her way up the
she valued getting across. “Wearing dangling
mountain. That would be coming from Camille
earrings on the mountain and giving jewelry
Wild, a Colorado native metalsmith, climber and
to the other guides felt like saying it’s okay to
social worker who, aside from wearing a rack of
express yourself and be who you want to be in
climbing gear, is sporting her handmade jewelry
the mountains, and there’s nothing wrong with
with silver fringes dangling from a jasper stone.
that,” shares Wild.
“Strength and femininity are one in the same,” she believes.
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In her pieces, Wild tries to embody the somewhat whimsical feeling she gets moving
Wild was introduced to the art world at
her body along the San Juan mountains, desert
a very young age through her mom, Theresa
ribs and drainages. She chooses stones like
Pytell, one of Colorado’s fine jewelers. Early
landscape jasper and turquoise to showcase
memories connecting with her mom weave with
the earthy tones juxtaposed against the blue
hours spent laying beads out or playing in the
sky and creates pieces that have kinetic
