Jewelry designer and fine artist Jill Vacarra creates original works that combine dissimilar objects and styles in unexpected ways. Drawing on a lifelong passion for antiquities, Vacarra’s own work is a contemporary interpretation of the artifacts of earlier centuries and bygone places. Her passion has resulted in two distinctive jewelry lines. Her Anciennes (“meaning: the old ones”) line features one-of-a-kind jewelry that incorporates actual ancient artifacts. Her Echoes line is inspired by ancient motifs and organic natural shapes. All of her work evokes a feeling of timelessness. In developing a piece, Vacarra is especially drawn to objects that evoke a sense of the original artisan's presence. Her search for inspiration takes her to ancient sites in Europe and Mexico and has led her to develop relationships with antiquities dealers worldwide. Vacarra traces her passion for jewelry, artifacts and gems to a childhood spent going on family hikes and hunting for semi-precious gems, minerals and Native American arrowheads. At the age of 11, while walking the back roads of Nantucket, she found her first artifact, a Native American amulet/pendant fragment. Vacarra has a background in fine art and literature. When not designing jewelry, making art, or writing, the designer enjoys re-decorating, traveling, scouring museums, galleries and antique shops for odds, ends and inspiration, and blasting the car stereo while driving in search of adventure.