Lola Brooks is an artist, metalsmith, clotheshorse, and sometimes writer who studied fashion at Pratt Institute but quickly found herself drawn to the metals studio and the possibilities that the intimate scale of jewelry presented. Deciding to pursue jewelry full-time, she earned her BFA in metals from SUNY New Paltz. Fascinated by jewelry as a cultural signifier, she is influenced by historical jewels, which were often imbued with meaning far beyond the mere physicality of the object. She finds inspiration in the Victorian obsession with death and sentimentality, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the American art jewelry movement that followed World War II when artists resurrected an appreciation of the handmade and rejected principles of mass production. She is driven by her never-ending search for the rich variety of strange and beautiful materials she collects and her love of making beautiful things by hand.