June Nelson
they/she
Oakland, CA, USA
June Nelson (they/she) is a nonbinary transfem creator, educator, and organizer based in Oakland, CA. They received a BA in Cognitive Science and Education from UC Berkeley in 2020 and worked as a public school teacher before dedicating themself to creating. A self-taught jeweler, June crafts transdisciplinary bodily adornments through chainmail, metal casting, wire working, and a variety of other mediums, toying with expectations of appearance and material. Their work is deeply inspired by queer bodies and expression, ancestral/traditional craftwork, and our (dis)connection with land and nature. Honoring the importance of community in the arts, June stewards communal makerspaces for QT/BIPOC artists, organizes community-based fashion shows and art markets, and teaches various workshops intended to cultivate community and facilitate access to jewelry-making materials and knowledge.
“Inspired by my fluid journey through gender and transness, my handmade jewelry and bodily adornments emerge from the in-between: hard and soft, grounded and spiritual, holy and sensual. My work is created by, for, and with my queer community. I am driven by a deep love and intention to tell our stories, to share my knowledge and pass it down as a future queer ancestor myself. I take inspiration from traditional and ancestral crafts, especially the Celtic arts of chainmail and metalworking, as well as the fractal and cyclical patterns of nature. My art knows no boundaries; everything is connected.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“These works, like much of what I do, are centered on connection: to the land, to each other, and to ourselves. These three looks were created for ‘Emergence: Rage and Peace’, a community-based fashion show empowering queer creators to collectively examine and express our emotional bodies.
The first piece, Organism, explores our connection to the natural world. The shapes emerging out of chainmail and o-rings are reminiscent of scales, collections of bubbles, or mudcracks, bringing the wearer into communion with the patterns of nature. The piece is studded with natural materials, including shells and stones like amazonite and rose quartz, each intentionally selected and placed to infuse the piece with nature’s more mystical powers. “Organism” reminds us of the protection and healing we find in our connection with nature.
The second piece, Vulnerability, is a commentary on our connection to each other and to ourselves. Chainmail is armor, a tool of war, made more vicious in this piece studded with spikes and dripping with blood. Yet at the same time, armor protects instead of attacks, and this piece leaves the most vulnerable parts of the body open, covered only by a soft felted heart pouring out fragile glass beads. Vulnerability speaks to the artificial pretenses, the fronts we put up for other people, which simultaneously protect and restrain us. The bright red heart, pierced and chained to the harness, is a glimmering hope of transcending this armor and finding real connection through honest, uninhibited expression.
The third piece, Ouroboros, is a reflection on our connection to the creative process. The piece was collaborative from start to finish. We organized a “rage party” to break mirrors and smash bottles, connecting with each other in a collective release of rage. These pieces were then soldered and attached by chains into a delicate arrangement. The circle in the middle tells the story of the Ouroboros, the snake devouring itself, in both form and process. Destruction is simultaneously an act of creation, and everything is destined to cycle through birth, life, death, and decay, only to be born again."
“Organism”, chainmail, hardware, stone, shell, pearl beads, 23” x 21”, 2024
What role does connection play in your creative process?
“I am literally constantly connecting when I make my jewelry. Chainmail is a laborious process weaving individual metal links through each other to create forms. Many see this process as tedious, but I see it as meditative, even spiritual. It reminds me of our place in the world: each jump ring seems small and insignificant, yet the piece could not exist without every individual jump ring woven together, holding each other tightly. Complex shapes and structures emerge based on the relationships between the individual rings - how many they’re connected to, and in what way. I think our human world could benefit from understanding ourselves as a complex web of intricately interconnected beings rather than a collection of individual insignificant links.
Much of my creative process explores connections such as these. Many of my pieces are allegorical representations of a story, whether mine or someone else’s. Figuratively, this bonds the storyteller with whoever wears the piece, and more literally, beautiful connections are born out of sharing these stories with someone who was drawn to the piece based on form alone. Other pieces are not so directly allegorical but are inspired by a specific person or place, thus deepening my connection to that entity. Some of my favorite pieces I’ve ever made have been gifts for friends, which I view as intertwining our essences, an emergent process born out of our connection with each other. Similarly, much of my creative work is born out of my connection with other beings, whether they are human, animal, plant, or object – the process is the same for me."
“Vulnerability", chainmail, hardware, felt, glass beads, 20” x 20”, 2024
What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
“My queerness connects me to everything. My community, my family, my art, the work I do – everything in my life is so intimately shaped by my queerness as to be connected to it.
My queerness is where my love for metalworking was born. I started by creating earrings for myself, an innocent expression of femininity underlying a transformation I didn’t even know was taking place at first. As I began exploring my gender and sexuality, jewelry-making became a site to examine and express who I really was, and who I was becoming. This craft, chainmail and metalworking in particular, played an important role in shaping my transition. Now most of my collaborators and customers are other queer/trans creatives, and I teach workshops to share my skills and knowledge with fledgling queer/trans jewelers. This work has led to uncountable invaluable connections within my own community, and these connections fuel my work in turn. Thus, my community, my livelihood, and my art are all inextricably linked with my own queerness.
My queerness also connects me to the world. The binaries I have broken inside myself shape the way I understand everything else: everything exists on a spectrum, in a constant state of change and transformation; there are no true boundaries beyond the ones we impose ourselves. My queerness shapes my political perspective as well, connecting me to the land, to my community, and to myself. Much of my radicalization was driven by my queerness; rather, by trying to find a safe place for my queer body to exist without fear or discrimination. One of those spaces is working the land, nurturing connection between myself and the natural world. Another space is within my queer community, where we hold each other down and lift each other up. And a third space is within myself, where I have created my own little universe, an alternate reality I can escape to when the dominant reality is too much. All of these connections, grounded in my queerness, allow me to fulfill a free and creative existence."
“Ouroboros”, Solder, glass, steel chains, stone beads, 23” x 23”, 2024
Anything else you would like to share about this work? This can be an important part of the process, sourcing materials, or research.
“I upcycle materials whenever possible!"