Accessories – Atlanta
Jennifer Maxwell has found beauty, happiness, and wonder in all forms of art since she was a child. While in college at the University of Georgia, her part time job at a bead shop was the impetus for her love affair with crafting jewelry. After receiving her undergraduate degree, she went back to school to the Gemological Institute of America in Southern California to learn about jewelry design and manufacturing. To support herself in school, she crafted the first iteration of JMax Jewelry, using mostly pearls and shells, and sold them to small boutiques along the coast. After graduating, she moved to the mecca of the jewelry industry, New York City, where she worked in fine jewelry product development at such giants as David Yurman and Tiffany & Co. It was in New York that the JMax style evolved into the more asymmetrical, chain-layered designs that you see today. In 2011, she moved back to her hometown of Atlanta, and started introducing parts from her grandmother's extensive vintage costume jewelry collection into her designs. That idea took hold, and she has since been on a constant search for unique vintage pieces to incorporate into her designs, such as shoe clips and crystal chandelier pieces. She was able to quit her full time job in 2013 and strike out on her own, splitting her time between designing high end custom fine jewelry for clients, and making the one-of-a-kind asymmetrical wearable art of JMax Jewelry.