Sarah Cavender Metalworks

On Main Street in the heart of historic downtown Oxford, Alabama, a modest storefront houses one of the more unusual working studios in Calhoun County. Sarah Cavender Metalworks has occupied its spot at 500 Main Street since sculptor Sarah Cavender opened the business in 1994, and the shop still functions as both a working studio and a small retail showroom where visitors can see finished pieces up close.

Cavender trained as a sculptor, earning a degree from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 1984. Her early work involved brass screening material, which she began folding and manipulating into floral and insect forms using techniques she developed largely on her own over years of trial and error in the studio. Those sculptural experiments eventually became the foundation for a full line of handcrafted jewelry that the business is now best known for.

The metal mesh technique that started as sculpture now shows up in bracelets, necklaces, earrings, rings, brooches and hair accessories, along with belts and handbags. Pieces are organized by style families with names like Viking Knit, Wire Knit, Milanese Mesh, Fern Chain and Filigree, and by color groups such as Verdigris, Nebula and Sunburst, reflecting the wide range of finishes Cavender has developed over four decades of steady work.

Every piece is made and forged by local craftspeople working under Cavender’s direct supervision, then finished entirely by hand. The metal is hand-painted using custom-tinted bronze powders before being sealed with lacquer, a multi-step process that gives each item its particular depth of color and its slightly weathered, sculptural look. Because the fabrication happens on-site, the retail floor and the production studio share the same Main Street address, a detail that sets the shop apart from most jewelry retailers.

The shop welcomes walk-in visitors during business hours, though the website notes that calling ahead is a good idea since the proprietor is often occupied filling orders in the back of the studio. Monday through Friday, the doors are typically open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with additional visits available by appointment for customers who want a more personal look at the process or need help with a custom piece.

Sales extend well beyond Calhoun County. Sarah Cavender Metalworks ships pieces through its own online shop and has built a customer base that reaches outside Alabama and, according to the business, outside the country as well, a reach that is notable for a studio still run out of a single small-town storefront. Locally, though, the Main Street address remains the anchor, part of a small but growing cluster of independent shops that has taken root in Oxford’s historic downtown corridor in recent years.

That downtown district has seen a modest wave of new openings along Main Street and East Choccolocco Street, and Sarah Cavender Metalworks predates most of them by decades, having operated from the same address since well before the current revitalization effort began. For anyone exploring Oxford’s older commercial blocks on foot, the shop is an easy stop, sitting among the newer storefronts that now make up the historic core of town.

Visitors interested in custom orders or wholesale inquiries can reach the studio directly by phone, and the shop’s own product catalog is organized clearly enough that browsing online ahead of a visit can help narrow down which style family or color palette to look for in person. Whether someone is after a single statement necklace or is outfitting a boutique elsewhere with wholesale pieces, the combination of sculptural training and decades of hands-on refinement is what sets this Main Street studio apart from typical jewelry retail, and it is one of the reasons the shop has remained a fixture of downtown Oxford for so long.