Getting Into the Details with Woodsmoke and Willow

“I've always enjoyed detail-oriented work,” Katalin Wangler explains.

Her CV bears that statement out: Wangler has a degree in industrial design, and spent a few years working on the exhibits at the Royal Alberta Museum. While in school she did artifact illustration, which took her to archeological sites—including a two-month stint in Pompeii—to record, in meticulous detail, the pieces of history being unearthed.

“That's a very technical thing, right?” She says. “'You're measuring specifically, you have to capture the shape and the texture of it.”

That level of precision has carried over into Woodsmoke and Willow, her St. Albert-based imprint known for incredibly detailed wearable art. The subject matter ranges—among Wangler’s most popular designs is a set of charcuterie board earrings—but tends to circle science and the natural world.

“I love wildlife, I love nature, I love conservation and beautiful places,” she says. “I've been really inspired by just creating those little vignettes of the natural world that I find beautiful. There's a lot of diversity out there that I think needs to be celebrated.”

While both details and creativity have long been a part of Wangler’s life, Woodsmoke and Willow began for personal reasons: helping her daughter navigate an allergy to low-quality metals.

“She wanted to get her ears pierced,” Wangler recalls. “And then once she started wearing all the cute things she found … they just kept causing infection after infection. And so we did a little bit of research … we found that you could use titanium, which is what joint replacements are made out of, and so it's known to be a metal that doesn't really react with the human body, in most cases. So we ordered some, we bought some polymer clay, and we just started playing around. It became a huge, fun thing we did together. And then people started wanting to buy them from us and it just kind of evolved from there.”

That evolution led to a hugely successful Etsy shop and website. It’s become her full-time job, but even before that, making custom jewelry proved useful while Wagner was working in classrooms, and assisting in field trips: even in the covid years of online programming, having wearable art that matched the day’s lesson helped set a positive, compelling tone.

“I started making earrings like the Ms. Frizzle style, dressing the part,” she says. “It really helps relate to kids in the setting, especially when it was online. It's really hard to guide a classroom in this way, but this is how we were trying to deliver the programs, and I found that that really made a big difference.”

Wangler’s also found that drawing inspiration from nature, science, and the world around her has connected her with so many likeminded folks.

“It’s neat to connect on that level with people, when I'm interested in something and then I find someone else is too. I end up having interesting conversations with total strangers on Etsy messages or Instagram. It's neat.”

Article Written by: Paul Blinov

Katalin Wangler’s work can be found at woodsmokeandwillow.com or in the Art Gallery of St. Albert gift shop.

- 30 -