North Vancouver jeweller Adea Chung has a talent for taking reclaimed wood and broken skateboards to create something intricate and beautiful.
"My dad was an amazing wood carver, so I just kind of grew up with that around and did it just for friends and kind of as something fun to do on the side," says Chung, creator of Billy Would Designs. "Then it just evolved but it definitely wasn't something that I had set out to do at the beginning."
Chung is one of 10 local artists featured in The Gift Box at CityScape Community Arts Space in North Vancouver. The artists are all locally based members of the North Vancouver Arts Council and their work ranges from paintings and greeting cards to jewelry and candleholders.
Veronica Stockton-Kushner, office administrator for the North Vancouver Community Arts Council, says submissions are taken a couple of times a year by local artists of various mediums.
"They submit their work, we jury it and then we choose which ones are going to go in," says Stockton-Kushner. "We highlight them in The Gift Box for a few months, I think it's about a three or four month contract that they have."
All of the artwork is available for purchase by the public and Stockton-Kushner says the artists receive a commission for the pieces they sell.
"It's been pretty successful," she says. "We have sales for the products every time we do a rotation."
For Chung, who only heard about The Gift Box this year, the experience has been good.
"I'm excited to do more stuff with them for sure," she says.
Chung discovered The Gift Box after attending the annual North Shore Art Crawl with her brother back in April and quickly became ensconced in the local arts community. "I had no idea there was this many artists in North Van," she remembers saying. "It was really exciting and then I got introduced to somebody through the council and then it kind of evolved and then they were like 'Oh, you should do The Gift Box.'" Chung has a studio in North Vancouver and her work is featured in stores and galleries across the country. She creates everything from necklaces, bracelets and earrings, to cufflinks, tie clips, belt buckles and even bottle openers.
"It's all recycled and reclaimed hardwood, so I get a lot of off-cuts from old furniture or just basically anything that is just too nice and precious to throw out but usually too small to be used for anything else," she says. "But for jewelry it's perfect because you don't need much."
The brighter coloured pieces, or anything that looks like plywood, Chung explains, are made from broken skateboard decks that are either from local shops, such as The Boardroom, or brought to Chung by skateboarders themselves.
Chung says she's thrilled to be able to make jewelry.
"I love that other people are so supportive and they've been really encouraging," she says. "It doesn't seem like something that there is a lot of competition with. There's so many amazing jewelers and stuff but wood seems to be one of those things that isn't, I don't know, it's not really the first thing you think of when you think of jewelry, so it seems to be something a little different."
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In addition to showcasing her designs in The Gift Box, Chung will also be selling her jewelry on both weekends of the Harmony Arts Festival's Art Market, which takes place Aug. 1-4 and Aug. 8-10 on Argyle Avenue, between 14th and 17th streets in West Vancouver.
Among the juried exhibitors selling their wares are photographers, jewellers, textile artists, glass workers, painters, wood workers, potters and metal artists.
