I started making jewelry professionally after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985. I continued my education by working in a custom jewelry store for the next fifteen years. In the year 2000 I was blessed with the opportunity to open Magpie Jewelry and Metals Studio with my friends Kristen Fogtman-Faust and Terese Millmann.

For years the bulk of what I made was done in a traditional lost wax method. While I still do some casting, I have been moving away from carving wax models in favor of working directly in metal. The forging and graving of metal, leaves a record of how my forms and patterns are created. In this time when so much of our shared material culture is hidden from sight behind a veneer of simplicity, it is refreshing to see and feel how and object, a piece of jewelry is made.

— Christopher Michael Stephens