ROGUE’S RELICS

WORDS Tara Crutchfield PHOTOGRAPH Amy Sexson

Themes of history, science, and nature are threaded throughout the pieces of Polk County-based jewelry company, Rogue’s Relics. From rat skulls to snake skeletons, sixth-grade science teacher Kortlyn Dougherty uses a process called electroforming to repurpose the beauty of nature. You could say her pieces are dead things turned beautiful jewelry.

Dougherty’s father was influential in the interests that guide her jewelry design. “He’s always loved nature, always drew me to nature. […] We had a telescope when I was little, and we would take our telescope in the backyard and go stargazing,” she said. Dougherty loves animals too. “My sister wants to be a vet when she grows up, so we’ve always had a ton of animals in the house.”

As a child, Kortlyn would catch lizards, keep them as pets, feed them bugs from outside, and make ‘little fairy houses’ in her yard. When her dad accidentally ran over a ‘pet’ frog in the driveway, Kortlyn wouldn’t let her parents touch her beloved dead pet – she didn’t want him to go away, she said. When the frog corpse disappeared from the driveway, she was devastated, and her parents had to dig through the trash to find its body so that they could give it a proper burial. “I always wanted to help animals in some way, […] Now I guess I help them be something beautiful in their afterlife.”

Dougherty’s father also sparked her interest in science. “He taught me about molecules when I could barely even say a sentence,” she said, noting that he always did his best to instill a wonderment of Mother Nature. Her love of the subject continued throughout school. “I remember in seventh grade, we dissected an owl pellet and put together rodent bones from this owl pellet. I thought that was so cool,” she said. Dougherty even took a middle school science class in the room she teaches in now.

Dougherty has been making jewelry as a hobby since childhood. She would string together bits and bobs made of plastic beads and anything else she could find at a craft store. All of these interests converged during a difficult time for both the world and Kortlyn personally. A family emergency and a job furlough turned out to be catalysts for Rogue’s Relics and another dream – her teaching career.

LEARNING TO ELECTROFORM

Kortlyn had been dabbling in wire-wrapping for some time, finding inspiration and ideas online. In 2019, her father had two strokes. He was in the hospital for months, and she would stay with him often as he recovered. “I needed something to keep my mind busy,” she said. Dougherty would bring her wire-wrapping supplies to the hospital and started building up an inventory of jewelry. “I was making things to get my mind busy and focus my energy on something productive.” Friends encouraged her to sell her jewelry, and in late 2019, early 2020, Dougherty started an Etsy shop called Rogue’s Relics where she would sell wire-wrapped stones, earrings, bracelets, pendants, and the like. When COVID-19 made its way to the states early last year, Dougherty, working as a retail manager, was furloughed from her job. She needed something to fill her time and maintain a positive mindset during the uncertainty.

On social media, she stumbled upon what appeared to be soldered copper. She began researching it to learn how to solder, and during her research, she came across some pieces that caught her attention. “I specifically remember seeing a cicada and a butterfly that were coated in copper. I thought it was just molded, that they had poured copper in a mold.” She discovered it was a tangible object with copper grown on it, a look achieved through electroforming. After ‘diving down the rabbit hole,’ she began collecting supplies and learning more about the process. “Thank goodness for the internet,” she said.

“I taught myself,” said Dougherty of electroforming. “I created the paint – it’s a conductive paint that I use which allows electricity to flow through it. I ended up making the solution as well. There’s a solution that you have to put the objects in with the paint on them, and the solution also allows electricity to flow through it.”

She started her electroforming experiment in a small mason jar with 12-gauge copper wire. Sulfuric acid is also needed for the electroforming process. She laughed, describing the odd looks thrown her way when she made trips to the hardware store to check ingredients off her list, including copper pipe and sulfuric acid. “They’re looking at me like ‘What is she creating? This chick is insane.’”

“I was doing the wire first. It was okay; I wasn’t totally failing. There’s a lot of components because you’re running an electrical current through this solution. […] You have to get the PH balance right, you have to get the conductivity of the paint right, the acid levels – it’s pretty intense. And I used a lot of trial and error.” Dougherty has upgraded to an eight-gallon tank and found the copper pipe, as opposed to wire, is best for her jewelry-making purposes. The process is time-consuming, with items spending roughly 80 to 90 hours in the solution to deposit a thick coating on her creatures and foliage.

After the process is complete, she gives them an antique flourish, using Liver of Sulfer to darken the unsealed raw copper. She neutralizes the solution with baking soda to stop the antiquing process and polishes the pieces with steel wool, a Dremel, and a polishing cloth.

The process, distinct and captivating in its own right, produces pieces of the same nature. Rogue’s Relics boasts one-of-a-kind jewelry and decor made with everything from snake, frog, and lizard skeletons, to rat skulls, ginkgo leaves, oak leaves, dragonflies, and butterflies. The resourceful jewelry maker finds expired subjects for her jewelry and even has her friends, students, dad, and boyfriend bringing her creepies and crawlies. “I’m not ashamed to ask for dead things,” she said. Though she hasn’t done it yet, she has seen some appealing roadkill. “I haven’t – but it might come to that,” she laughed.

Dougherty has two dogs, one of which, Rogue, is her electroformed jewelry business’s namesake. “He’s the light of my life,” she said of the miniature Australian shepherd. She even brings Rogue to the Winter Haven Farmers Market on occasion. “He’s the face of my brand.”

Rogue’s Relics is on Etsy and at the Winter Haven Farmers Market every Saturday. “I’ve always wanted to be at a market,” she said. Farmers markets, antique shows, and flea markets are her ‘jam,’ her favorite weekend activity. “I meet the coolest people – especially in Winter Haven, and that’s why I love that market so much because I see the same people often. I love seeing them, and I love hearing their stories.”

USING HER ART TO TEACH SCIENCE

Over the last year, Dougherty, who has a degree in History from USF, became a teacher. “I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was in kindergarten. I took the leap, and I love it,” she said. She now teaches sixth-grade science and even uses electroforming to teach lessons about basic chemistry and conductivity.

Using electroforming in her class introduction, Dougherty wanted to engage her students – especially her female students. With STEM fields being overwhelmingly male-dominated, the science teacher wanted to show practical applications for her subject that might appeal to female students. “I’m creating something that’s very feminine, but I’m using a very scientific way of doing it. […] I love being a teacher because I can show my kids that science is way more than just surface level,” she said.

TAKE A LEAP

“It is an outlet for my creativity,” Kortlyn Dougherty said of Rogue’s Relics. “Now that I’m a teacher, I have my evenings off, and I have my weekends off, so I’m able to now dedicate that to something that makes me feel whole. [...] It kind of started and gained ground with me releasing my anxiety and fears and restlessness into my pieces to create something beautiful.”

Dougherty hopes her jewelry pieces are conversational. Made with natural items from stones and foliage to creatures and copper, Dougherty said, “I hope it connects them to that natural aspect and brings a little joy and nature to their outfit.”

“Every piece already has a home it’s destined for. The person just has to find it,” she said. Joining her inventory of copper-coated jewelry, Dougherty has experimented with resin and shadow boxes. She is working on more décor pieces like macrame with copper-coated animal bones. “I’m going to continue to grow and expand and do what makes me happy. I feel like if it brings me joy, I’m winning,” she said.

Reflecting on the trials of the last year, the rise of Rogue’s Relics, and her foray into teaching, Kortlyn encourages others to follow their dreams, saying, “I think at the end of the day, the biggest takeaway from this whole journey is just do it. Just take a leap.”

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