Kingman Museum - Online Store

R.W. Designwear - Kingman Museum's "Inspired by Nature, Made in Michigan" series

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Rita Wilberg of R.W. Designwear is a long-time northern Michigan resident. Trained at the William Holland School of Lapidary Arts in Georgia. Rita has worked with glass, stones, silver, and beads to create her unique jewelry pieces. One of her favorite mediums is sea glass. One day her son took her shark tooth hunting and after Rita found her first piece of sea glass the shark's teeth were quickly forgotten. Since then Rita has trained her family members to look for these treasures and now she has pieces from as far away as Normandy, France and the Caribbean Sea. Each sea glass jewelry piece is labeled with the collection site and can be guaranteed genuine because it was collected by Rita or a member of her family. Rita is a member of Sea Glass Artists & Sea Glass Collectors.

Rita and her husband also enjoy collecting native Michigan stones and can be seen most summer days hunting for new treasures. At least one week a year they travel to the Keweenaw Peninsula in Northern Michigan to hunt in the old copper mines. Using a metal detector they can load up on some of the precious ore which is then made into very beautiful jewelry.