Meet Jeannine and Charles McKenzie

Jeannine was born in 1945 in Alexandria, Virginia to a career army officer and lived the life a typical “army brat” moving from state to state and country to country. For over 32 years she has lived in her historic 1854 Greek Revival home in the county and raised her family of 5 children. Jeannine says that she finds great strength in her children and their “big old home.”

The creative force on the team, Jeannine has been a jeweler for more than 31 years. She displayed her work on the art show circuit for 11 years from 1974 to 1986, winning numerous awards at some of the finest juried shows in the Midwest, including . . . Milwaukee Lakefront, Chicago’s 57th Street, Oak Brook, Oak Park, Michigan’s Flint Art Fair, Bronson Park in Kalamazoo, The East Lasing Art Fair and Charlevoix. In Indiana, Talbot Street and Penrod, Ohio’s Crosby Gardens and Boston Mills, and in Kentucky, the St. James Court Art Show.

Jeannine began as a watercolorist and painted for a number of years before becoming a designer of jewelry. Although being primarily a self taught artist she is well rounded in her medium as her work is very diverse with delicate mixtures of textures and forms. Through the years her techniques have included casting, electroforming, etching, and fabrication.

In 1992 Jeannine’s husband Charles joined her to form the partnership and they now display and sell their work in over 75 galleries across the United States from Alaska to New York. They are avid outdoors men and enjoy fishing, camping, rock hunting and nature photography.

In 2004, after 10 years of rough camping, a month a year (sleeping in the back of their truck, hauling in water and a potty hole up in the woods) they were able to have a cabin built on their 80 acres of land in a remote wilderness area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula . . . Wolf, Moose, Black Bear, Bald Eagle, Beaver, Bobcat and so much more! Charles has to plow the snow (over 200 inches the past winter) off of their road, because the county does not do it. UPS does not deliver in the winter. Days go by without a human sound. Birds, Chipmunks and Red Squirrels eat out their hands. Is this the FAIRY TALE we all dream of?