South Dakota Magazine Article
This article was featured in the "We Make It" section of the March 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine:
"Tara Barney has handcrafted jewelry with stones and metal for over 20 years, but her Elegant Corn jewelry line began as a light hearted entry to an art exhibit. Today corn necklaces and earrings leave her Sioux Falls studio so quickly she recently hired her first employee to satisfy demand.
Growing up on an acreage 10 miles west of the state's largest city, Barney's family frequently planted colored corn in their garden. The memory resurfaced in 2009 when the Horse Barn Arts Center hosted an exhibit called "The Prairie," which invited artists to interpret the Great Plains through various motifs. "I remembered the colored corn and wondered what would happen if I paired it with glass beads and called it "Elegant Corn" as a joke, Barney recalls. "I tracked down the farmer who grows corn for the Corn Palace and I bought four bushels for $20. I entered my first necklace made with brown corn and tan glass beads and it sold. Then I knew I was on to something."
Creating corn jewelry is a labor-intensive process. Barney scrapes each ear of corn by hand , and then cuts a fine hole through each kernel using a jeweler's drill. Between 50 and 80 kernels, alternated with colorful beads, go on each necklace.
Even though corn is a natural product, Barney says it's as solid as a rock and won't deteriorate. "People think you need to treat it but you don't," she says. "Each kernel has a hard coating, like a nut or any other seed. People have been making jewelry from nuts and seeds and other natural things for thousands of years."
Barney also scours the state in search of other natural decorations. She creates pheasant feather earrings and necklaces made from pine cone leaves, which are collected by a friend on the Pine Ridge reservation. Barney
s jewelry is available through her website, www.reddoorcreations.com.
"Tara Barney has handcrafted jewelry with stones and metal for over 20 years, but her Elegant Corn jewelry line began as a light hearted entry to an art exhibit. Today corn necklaces and earrings leave her Sioux Falls studio so quickly she recently hired her first employee to satisfy demand.
Growing up on an acreage 10 miles west of the state's largest city, Barney's family frequently planted colored corn in their garden. The memory resurfaced in 2009 when the Horse Barn Arts Center hosted an exhibit called "The Prairie," which invited artists to interpret the Great Plains through various motifs. "I remembered the colored corn and wondered what would happen if I paired it with glass beads and called it "Elegant Corn" as a joke, Barney recalls. "I tracked down the farmer who grows corn for the Corn Palace and I bought four bushels for $20. I entered my first necklace made with brown corn and tan glass beads and it sold. Then I knew I was on to something."
Creating corn jewelry is a labor-intensive process. Barney scrapes each ear of corn by hand , and then cuts a fine hole through each kernel using a jeweler's drill. Between 50 and 80 kernels, alternated with colorful beads, go on each necklace.
Even though corn is a natural product, Barney says it's as solid as a rock and won't deteriorate. "People think you need to treat it but you don't," she says. "Each kernel has a hard coating, like a nut or any other seed. People have been making jewelry from nuts and seeds and other natural things for thousands of years."
Barney also scours the state in search of other natural decorations. She creates pheasant feather earrings and necklaces made from pine cone leaves, which are collected by a friend on the Pine Ridge reservation. Barney
s jewelry is available through her website, www.reddoorcreations.com.
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