Michelle Dall’Acqua

String Theory

All jewelry has a story. More to the point, all jewelry has several stories, from the artist’s inspiration to the customer’s desire to the tale of the materials. In the work of Michelle Dall’Acqua of Heartstrings Jewelry in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the story of each piece is a musical.

“I started using retired guitar strings in my jewelry about three years ago,” she says. “I was given a gift of a guitar string bracelet, but it just looked like an old guitar string in a circle. I thought the concept was fascinating, so I started looking at instrument strings.”

One aspect that Dall’Acqua liked about the guitar string is that they often look like gold or rose gold, depending on the material, but carry the surprise factor of their story. “When people see it for the first time, their reaction is like shock. They think it’s just jewelry. They come over to look at it, and then I tell them it’s retired guitar string, and they can’t believe it because it...