School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Alumni Profile: Jennifer Parrish

If Minimalism has an opposite, Jennifer Parrish’s jewelry is it. Her ornately beaded necklaces, jeweled crowns, and engraved amulets filled with frankincense all look like they belong on a 16th-century Tudor queen.

But the cultural icons ushering Parrish’s work into the spotlight are considerably more modern. Television characters in primetime shows from “Ugly Betty” to “According to Jim” have worn her necklaces onscreen, and in the upcoming movie “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” you’ll see one of her stained-glass pendants on—well, Parrish doesn’t know who yet. “Hopefully it will make it into the final edit,” she says.

While Parrish welcomes her television and movie sales, and the increased attention they bring her at art shows, she finds it a bit odd that “some people cannot imagine wearing something unless a celebrity has worn it first.” For her own role models, Parrish looks back to Renaissance artists who lived hundreds of years ago. “They gave their lives to their art and took their time,” she says. “The grand paintings of Carlo Crivelli are among my favorites for inspiration, so rich and lavish.” It’s no wonder Parrish is drawn to the Renaissance era: as a child, she loved castles and fairytales.

After experimenting with jewelry-making in high school, she studied glass, metalsmithing, and art history at the Museum School; then, for nearly a decade, she made her jewelry at night and worked days managing a hair salon. Around the time of her 30th birthday, Parrish launched a Web site, walked out the salon door, and didn’t look back.

Describing herself jokingly as a shut-in, Parrish works alone in an attic studio in her Stoneham, Mass., home, crafting each piece of jewelry by hand. She starts with bits of glass and lumps of resin clay, and uses tiny carving tools, antique-metal paint, and a convection oven to create work that looks at once delicate and heavy, old-fashioned and fresh. The process is laborious, “but it is also a bit of a daily meditation for me,” she says. “I find my peace within the details.”