Lynchburg woman named among world's best jewelry artists

“Just Liz” might sound like an unassuming name for a business, considering that Liz has been called one of the world’s top jewelry artists.

Liz McCormack has sold handmade rings, bracelets and earrings in the Lynchburg area for more than 20 years. Last year, a Virginia art publishing and management firm chose her for its book, “Best of Worldwide Jewelry Artists.” She is one of 70 artists in the book that is going to press by the end of the month.

Kennedy Publishing discovered McCormack through her website, justliz.net, and enjoyed her work, said Henry Joseph, assistant to the publisher.

“It’s very elegant, very sophisticated,” Joseph said. “It’s not overly dramatic … There’s a really beautiful simplicity about what she does. We thought that stood out.”

Being selected for the book is “an incredible compliment,” McCormack said. “There’s a lot of art out there.”

McCormack’s handmade jewelry uses smooth, intricate coils of sterling silver and copper to wrap diamonds, pearls, quartz, topaz and other stones or stained glass.

She also makes a lot of custom jewelry, including wedding sets, based on ideas and requests from customers.

Much of her jewelry sells for prices in the range of $40 to $70 for pieces containing pearls and semi-precious stones. Some one-of-a-kind pieces are priced at hundreds of dollars.

When she was 19, McCormack learned basic jewelry making from a local jeweler. She then taught herself the details of the trade. “I just developed my own style and my own way of doing things,” she said.

She used to attend 15 to 20 wholesale shows each year to sell her jewelry to retail stores across the nation. Today, she attends a couple of shows each year, but she also sells jewelry in local galleries, online and in her father’s former real estate sales office on Boonsboro Road.

She also teaches classes for the Academy of Fine Arts and the Nelson County Parks and Recreation Department.

Last year, Kennedy Publishing in Williamsburg sent McCormack an e-mail asking her to apply for a place in a worldwide jewelry book. She deleted it.

And she deleted several more, McCormack said.

Finally, the company marked an e-mail as urgent, and McCormack checked into it. She was impressed with the company’s professional art genre books, she said. She decided to enter the contest, which had a $55 entry fee.

Joseph said Kennedy Publishing reviewed more than 40,000 websites of artists and art galleries to decide whom to feature in its art books.

The company published its first book, Best of Virginia Artists, about six years ago. After numerous books about artists in various states or regions in the U.S., the company is developing an international focus.

The books sell for around $45, and the company prints about 6,500. “We have a list of 1,000 collectors from around the world that receive all our books. They’re people who enjoy art,” Joseph said. “We have lots of customers who end up buying multiple books.”

An online version of the book contains photos of two pendants and one bracelet and contact information for Just Liz.

The business name came from a friend’s description of the artwork, McCormack said. “She said ‘your work is just you. It’s just Liz.’”