Zanny grew up on a farm outside Austin, where she spent her childhood riding horses and learning traditional crafts like braiding and beading, practicing her earliest weaving techniques on her horses' manes and tails. She began bead weaving as a child, making pieces for the people around her long before she considered it a career.
Her formal training came at the Gemological Institute of America, where she studied jewelry making, gemstones, and diamond grading. But much of her practice is self-taught, shaped by a family history in woodworking; many of the tools at her bench once belonged to her great-grandfather Joe, a watchsmith whose instruments she still uses today. Another great-grandfather, traded gems and fossils in the early years of the Tucson Gem Show, his mineralogy poster hangs in her studio alongside stones and specimens passed down through the family.
Outside the studio, Zanny is usually with her two teenage sons, reading Tolkien, or tending her garden. Shop Estudio Zanny jewelry online, or visit the studio in person during Open Canopy, held every first Saturday of the month from 1–4pm at 916 Springdale Rd. Explore the tools and process behind the work, ask questions, and browse dozens of open artist studios, galleries, and retail spaces at Canopy.
In the Studio at Canopy
