Kristen Holub is a full-time studio metalsmith working primarily in sterling silver and semi-precious stones. Her studio is located on the third floor of Lillstreet Art Center, and she shares the space with metalsmith and friend Sarah Busen.

Kristen has always loved making things with her hands. As a child, she made earrings out of paperclips (her parents got a few calls from her teachers), had a huge rock collection and loved going through her mother’s jewelry box. Little did she know, those interests would merge in the future and become her career.

After taking every art class offered at her high school, Kristen enrolled as a high school senior in a metalsmithing course at her local Community College and got her first taste of working in silver. In the fall, she went to college in Urbana-Champaign as a general art major. She took metalsmithing classes, but declared Crafts as her major, and glass as her emphasis. Throughout college Kristen worked in glass and metal as parallel disciplines, and only during her last year of school began to merge the two and make them work together. It was not until she graduated with her BFA from University of Illinois that she shifted her focus to mainly metalsmithing.

For the past 5 years, Kristen has owned and operated her own jewelry business. She has taught metalsmithing classes and workshops at the Suburban Fine Art Center, Lillstreet Art Center, and University of WI, Milwaukee. She also worked for a period as a bench jeweler for Peggie Robinson Designs in Evanston. In addition to judging several middle-school and high-school art fairs, Kristen gives lectures to high-school art students as a way of giving back to the community. Kristen has also served as the CMAG Board Secretary for the past two and a half years, and her term will be up this summer.

Even with her busy work schedule, Kristen still finds time to volunteer on the landscaping committee for the 90-unit loft building where she lives, and loves to do papercrafts, ride her bike and cook with her husband.