About
Dunton Ellerkamp is a New York based jewelry brand founded by designer Owen Dunton Ellerkamp in 2022. As a self-taught jewelry designer and fabricator, Ellerkamp, feels unrestrained by the conventions of traditional jewelry design and the gendered notions that pervade the industry. Dunton Ellerkamp seeks to honor the heritage of the craft while finding new ways to interpret materials to create pieces that are intended to be worn everyday. The jewels are created in solid silver and gold with high quality, unique stones and materials. The pieces are created to last many lifetimes — to be handed down and worn for generations. Each piece is handcrafted in our Brooklyn studio.
Dunton Ellerkamp’s point of view is informed by the sensitivities of the mundane — the slow change of light, the shape of a shadow, or the intermingling of color. Growing up immersed in the nature of New England, Owen's perspective is shaped by the quiet and understated beauty of the natural world.
The jewelry is produced using the lost wax casting method, a technique that has largely remained unchanged since its inception in 4000 BCE. The jewels start as a block of wax and are hand carved in his Brooklyn studio. Casting artisans transform wax forms into solid metals — silver or gold. The Dunton Ellerkamp studio hand finishes each piece through a series of tumbling, sanding, and filing to achieve a unique textured skin on each piece. Central to the ethos is the desire to create pieces that will last many lifetimes — using solid metals, and high quality materials.
Jewelry Philosophy
“One of the reasons I found myself making jewelry was because I had a hard time finding jewelry that spoke to me. Everything felt so shiny, light and delicate, gendered, absent of any artistic hand, and very distant from the source the materials originate — the Earth.
My work is informed by my more androgynous inclinations and my desire to highlight the natural beauty of metals, stones, and pearls. I tend towards more muted tones and soft lines; colors and forms found in nature. As I move forward I hope to connect with miners from around the globe to share the stories of stones and metals through jewelry.”
Jewelry
Owen Ellerkamp has worked in the art/design world in New York since graduating from Oberlin College in 2018, where he studied religion. In his professional life, he has worked to sell cultural artifacts as disparate as Marie Antoinette's Royal Desk coffer, Elizabeth Taylor's Rolls Royce, to works by DeBuffett, and Chagall. More recently, he worked for a design gallery representing revered craftsmen from all over the globe. He focused on exhibition production, marketing, and placed articles sharing the cultural heritage of craft in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, and the Wall Street Journal. He started Dunton Ellerkamp in September 2022.
Founder