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This weekend Kristyn Cooper made the trek up the twisty road along the Nashwaak River and through the woods to the Miramichi. She went to visit with her parents, but also to fulfill a mission. She carried with her 14 fresh handcrafted silver pendants, wrapped in soft cloth, polished and adorned with semi-precious stones in a wide colour palette, that she spent months designing, and building for her first solo show, Shadows of Antiquity, at Gallery 78 this Friday.

Kristyn Cooper took the Best in Show Award in April 2008 at Forging Reflections, an exhibition of work from the Jewellery and Metal Arts program at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design for a knife she created with birds-eye maple and stainless steel. The competition adds an extra dimension to a beautiful display of work by students at the college, and offers one artist whose overall work seems especially promising a solo exhibition at Gallery 78.

Cooper walked off with the Heather Stone Emerging Artist of the Year Award 2009 at the Atlantic Craft Trade Show in Halifax in February. It came with a cash prize, but more importantly, said Cooper, a plaque of recognition.

Then, she became the recipient of the Nel Oudemans Award from the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation in the spring.

Her knife was among 200 pieces chosen out of 1,200 cross-Canada submissions to a jury choosing work for the Cheongju International Craft Biennale 2009 that ran from Sept. 23 to Nov. 1, 2009 at the Cheongu Arts Center in Korea.

The surprising thing about that is that when her mentor, Metal and Jewellery Studio head, Brigitte Clavette, asked her to help fill out the application forms for other Fredericton artists and then suggested that Kristyn enter a piece, she thought, 'Oh I could never do that! I just graduated.'

But Clavette persisted, because, she said, Cooper's work was really, really strong.

"(Kristyn, who is now the metal studio technician) was a very dedicated, focused student, always prepared, always done on time," said Clavette. "She's quiet but she has a wicked sense of humour, and is really no-nonsense."

Clavette said she encouraged Cooper the way she encourages all her students, but Kristyn was very serious and dedicated to her work.

As an artist, she is resourceful and self-reliant, said Clavette, but can also ask for help or advice when she feels she needs it.

Shadows of Antiquity, said Cooper, is especially sweet because of the location of the show, an ornate, beautiful house: a wonderful fit for Cooper's concept because Kristyn Cooper likes antiques, architectural details, ornate wrought iron fences, Victorian- and Medieval-inspired embellishment, and worked from that to create outlines of ornate patterns resulting in work that is crafted from another era, but is fresh and contemporary at the same time.

Minimalist, said Cooper, who also wants the line to fit anyone, from a teenager to a mature sophisticated client.

Kristyn Cooper said that part of the reason she became a metalsmith was not only because of all the tools she felt at home with but also because she's charmed and curious about the relationship people forge with metal objects.

Her father was a big part of her inspiration. He's not a carpenter, said Cooper, but he's a MacGyver-type who can fix anything with anything; that's his creative edge.

Cooper's mother is very artistic and always thought Kristyn would be an artist but in high school she was so shy and unsure about her own drawing ability she shied away from even taking art, and it took her five years after she graduated to make her way to the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design in Fredericton, but once she arrived in the metal studio there, she knew she was home.

"You wear jewelry on your body," said Cooper, who loves nothing more than working and working for hours creating with precious metal and stones. Her last push to prepare for this exhibition was a straight 17-hour stretch.

"It's something that is going to last for hundreds of years - just the idea of people loving these little objects (I can make), and passing them down though their families is wonderful," she said.

The knife she created was partially inspired by her upbringing.

Her dad, she said, always treated her like the boy he never had, and she spent a lot of time at the family camp in the woods, where there were always hunting knives.

She saw his relationship with the woods, and with those objects, the tradition that came with it, and she was thrilled when she couldn't find the shadow boxes she needed for the exhibition and he offered to build them, a modified version without glass, and far more beautiful than anything she could have purchased, she said.

Her mother helped paint them, and she couldn't wait to go home and take them all down from where her parents carefully placed them to dry in the basement of their family home.

For Cooper, metal becomes an heirloom object, something that people love and hold onto and form a connection with. Kristyn's feeling for those objects came shining through brilliantly for Clavette.

"When I saw the knife I thought it was very beautiful," said Clavette, who just started working with a piece of the stainless steel Cooper used to form the blade of her knife, "but now I have a new found respect for her."

Kristyn Cooper opens Shadows of Antiquity Friday, Dec. 4 on the main floor of Gallery 78. Lionel Cormier, paintings, a group exhibition called Christmas Choice will all open the same evening from 5-7 p.m.

For more information call 454-5192 or log onto www.gallery78.com

Karen Ruet is a freelance writer and photographer living in Fredericton. She teaches at The New Brunswick College of Craft and Design and runs The Gallery at NBCCD. She is one of the founding members of the local photography collective, SilverFish (2000).