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Colleen O'Toole/KANSAN Meredith Trewolla, a senior from Prairie Village, specializes in jewelry and metalworking.
Art in Focus: Meredith Trewolla medical assistant and metalworker
▶ SAMANTHA SEXTON
'@Sambiscuit
Growing up in Prairie Village, Meredith Trewolla knew she was going to be an artist before she knew what an artist was.
Her mother was an art teacher, so a love for the expressive side of life was ingrained early on and never left. Her journey took her from Kansas to Cleveland to Texas and back to Kansas again.
"I grew up in Prairie Village and when I graduated high school I knew I wanted to get out and go make art," Trewolla said. "I went to Cleveland where I pretended to go to school and after a year or so of pretending I decided to take it seriously so I came back home."
After seeing an exhibit including metalwork from University students, Trewolla decided to study metalworking and jewelry at the University.
"I did two years here at KU,
but I was not in a healthy relationship at the time and when I was working on my senior project, I realized that everything that I was making was sad and made me sad, and I knew that I didn't want that to be my final work here at KU," Trewolla said. "So I decided that I needed to work on myself, and I told myself I would be back."
From there, Trewolla moved to Texas, where she learned how to be a medical assistant. Trewolla said she found a similar calling in both art and the medical field.
"I needed something that would offer some security but also help me make a difference and help people," Trewolla said. "I think that helping people is the real reason why we're here."
She added: "We're here to heal and to heal others, and if I can do that in other ways than my art. I'll try."
Fellow art student, Rachel Carver, a senior from Kansas City, Kan., said
Trewolla's compassion and emotive personality is one of the biggest parts of her metalworking.
"She makes jewelry but manages to tell a story with each piece," Carver said. "She uses nature, her life, and what's going on around her to create the personality of the piece, and I've definitely tried to incorporate that sort of style in my own work."
Carver gave an example, recalling when Trewolla's son was sick she was worried and stressed, but instead of missing class or being angry, Trewolla had gone straight to work, sketching the faces of her husband and children and incorporating the somber feel into her current piece — though that's not to say that it lacked color, or as Trewolla calls it, "the spice of life."
Trewolla uses synchronicity in all aspects of her work, reaching to nature, feminism, family and her work in the medical
field to tell a story with her jewelry.
"I love tactile art, something you can feel and touch," Trewolla said. "Jewelry is like the epitome of that, and it's so personal that I want it to say something more than it's pretty."
Trewolla is currently working on her senior project, a Mandala, which is a Sanskrit spiritual symbol that represents the universe using individual jewelry pieces.
"The Mandala is one whole but is made up of little parts that are so individual themselves that if you were to take it apart, you wouldn't be able to tell that they all fit together to make one piece," Trewolla said. "And I think that all of life's like that. Religions, cultures, people, places — we're all connected and we're all the same but pulled apart it can be hard to see that sometimes."
Edited by Mackenzie
Colleen O'Toole/KANSAN
(Above and below) Jewelry that Trewolla has made. She became interested in metalworking after seeing an exhibit put on by University student*
Colleen O'Toole/KANSAN
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