Artist Profile:

Leonor Pisano is an award winning international jewelry artist with a passion for copper! Her one-of-a-kind jewelry creations are exquisite, unique, and all hand made. Her work features copper combined with other metals, minerals, and natural materials found in the Sonoran Desert. Her jewelry is artfully assembled into beautiful necklaces, earrings, bracelets and other body adornments. She combines copper with silver and brass, and often with surprising touches of turquoise, fresh water pearls, cholla, ironwood and leather. One of the unique features of her metal jewelry is the etching that depicts petroglyphs or original drawings which have been adapted for the etching process.

Leonor has created art since she was a small girl. In second grade she spent a great deal of time decorating her papers instead of doing the schoolwork! When her teacher asked what she wanted to do when she grew up, her answer to her was to be an Art Teacher.

At the age of 16, Leonor came to the U.S. from Chile. She earned a Master’s degree in Art Education and enjoyed teaching art in public schools for 31 years. During that time she learned metal-smithing and took courses at the Maryland Institute of Art along with workshops in stained glass and mosaic-making.

In addition to her studio in Tucson, Leonor maintains a summer studio in Isla Negra, Chile, both locations featuring copper as an important natural resource. Visitors to both countries have begun collecting her jewelry as talismans of the beauty of these areas.

Nature is the main source of inspiration for her work. Leonor can see the potential in each piece of copper and looks at her jewelry pieces as miniature sculptures of wearable art. She loves to balance the hardness of the metal with the delicate textures of nature: seed pods, wood, or cactus skeletons. To her, copper symbolizes both Chile and Arizona, therefore the links in her life are completed by the jewelry.

Leonor carries on a tradition that is hundreds of years old, that of wearing copper next to the skin. Some believe the metal promotes good health and eases the pain of arthritis. It inspires Leonor to know that her jewelry creations not only serve as adornments, but for some also might help with the healing process. Come and see her beautiful pieces at:

Desert Artisans’ Gallery
6536 E Tanque Verde Rd.
Tucson, Arizona
Phone: (520) 722-4412