Laurel Burch, a Novato artist who put her brightly colored images of cats, butterflies, flowers and mythic figures on jewelry, coffee mugs and many gift items, has died. She was 61.
Burch died Sept. 13 at her home, said her daughter, Aarin Burch. The cause was osteopetrosis, a bone disease the artist had had from birth.
She began making jewelry as a teenager in the 1960s, while she worked as a cook, house cleaner and baby sitter in San Francisco. So many people complimented her on her exotic creations of bone, coins, beads and hammered metal that she began to sell them at street fairs and flea markets.
"I found metal in a junkyard and hammered it out on the back of an old frying pan," she said, speaking of her early jewelry, during an interview with the Marin Independent Journal in 2005.
She launched her business, now called Laurel Burch Artworks, in the late '60s with the help of a small staff working out of her house.
About that time, she began to make paintings using exotic nature, myths and world culture for images. Soon she was commissioned by restaurants, businesses and private collectors. She also made posters of her art.
Burch was often hospitalized with broken bones caused by her disease, but she continued working through her recovery, starting in her hospital room.
"I refuse to have anything in my life that I can't turn around to something magical and beautiful," she said on her Web site.
After a trip to China in the early 1970s, Burch adopted the cloisonne technique of enamel work. Soon afterward her vivid enamel jewelry became her most popular item. Her business grew to the point that 500 boutiques and department stores worldwide sold her items.
In 1994, Burch closed her manufacturing and wholesale business and concentrated on licensing her products. She continued creating the designs, "the most precious and important things I can do," she said in a 1994 interview with the San Jose Mercury News.
She was born Laurel Anne Harte on Dec. 31, 1945, in Southern California.
Along with her daughter, Burch is survived by her son, Jay; two grandchildren; two sisters; and her third husband, Rick Sara.
-- Los Angeles Times
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