Get to know the founder of KEANE, a hand-blown glass jewelry brand

Colin Keane Lynch, founder of jewelry brand KEANE (@keanenewyork), makes stunning glasswork into wearable works of art. The hand-blown jewelry pieces are delicate, colorful, and bold. But while the finished products may look sleek and simple, the process behind them is infused with the designer’s thought and care, revealing a complexity beneath their smooth surfaces.

“Jewelry can really easily transform how you feel, or how you present yourself in a way that feels more individualized,” explains Colin. While working in the fashion industry, the jewelry designer wanted to find a way to combine his experience in fashion with his background in glasswork, and thus KEANE was born.

Colin describes working with glass as complicated. “It’s a strange material in that it is dangerous, but at the same time it requires a delicateness that is just really intriguing,” he explains.

When it comes to making a jewelry collection, Colin’s inspiration comes from his external experiences, as well as his personal relationship with the glass itself. “There’s not one way that I create, but it generally does start with a general theme and then finding ways to translate that through textures [and] different applications,” he explains.

Aeree Jung (@snoopjung), who handles the business side of KEANE, sees Colin’s work as bridging a creative gap. “What he tries to do is bridge between the artisan and fashion world,” she explains. “And instead of using a pen and paper [to] sketch the designs, Colin would kind of work on the torch and play around and make pieces, and [then] decide which ones we would like to further develop into the collection.”

But Colin’s relationship with his jewelry doesn’t stop after a piece is complete—it extends to the person wearing it. “What I enjoy with the jewelry is seeing some of the forms and the shapes, and identifying the type of person that might embody that,” he says. “The type of work I do, I do a lot alone and in solitude, so going from that and then putting it out, and then being able to engage and find people who respond to it makes it feel worthwhile.”