Kathy Stout
Inspiration for the Jewelry Kathy Stout has been making colorful Caddisfly cases since 1995. Her ex-husband, Ben Stout was a biologist who specialized in stream ecology and would bring caddisflies into his lab. Kathy was fascinated by how they built their cases and was curious to see if colored aquarium gravel added to the tank would be incorporated it into their case. A quote from Kathy's website, "Well, I could not believe it !!! The next day there were caddisfly cases made with, yellow, green, blue, orange aquarium gravel!!! It was great!... This is not a science experiment anymore... it is ART!!" It then took them 3 years to figure out how to make a enclosure that simulated stream conditions, so they could raise caddisfly larvae.
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Stout goes out every spring and collects a type of caddisfly that makes a leaf case and then makes a second case out of small rocks. She collects the caddisflies when they are still in their leaf case and puts them in a tank with various precious stones. After they complete their hard case, she allows them to complete their life cycle. Once the adults emerge, Kathy releases them and collects the abandoned cases. The cases as is are only held together by silk and are too fragile to make into jewelry. So she uses an epoxy to strengthen them before uses the cases as beads in various jewelry. |
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Jewelry
Kathy is currently the president and owner of Wildscape Inc. and sells necklaces, bracelets, pendants, pins, key chains and even fly rods on her website. These are just a few photos of her work from her website www.wildscape.com.