Before she got into jewelry design, Kathryn Bentley was all about painting, a medium she studied in art school. And while it’s easy to let those things slip as soon as your career picks up, Kathryn keeps filling canvases as her namesake line and the diffusion one, Dream Collective, takes off. “It’s something I still enjoy doing, and I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself when I do it,” she says. Here, a look at some of her creations.“I’m really into sculpture. Henry Moore’s pieces are a big influence in my jewelry, and I really love his shapes. These paintings are not taken from any of his sculptures exactly, but abstractly, Henry Moore sculptures were the idea behind them.”“The colors, I think, are ones I would be attracted to in my daily life—colors I would want to wear, have in my home. There isn’t necessarily a vintage reference or anything like that. It’s just a palette that I hope to find in my surroundings.” Don’t miss Kathryn’s (colorful!) second edition! Get her evil eye cuff now…

“I lived in New York for 10 years, and I just had to go,” explains Kathryn Bentley of her decision to head west to Los Angeles years ago. “I lived in this amazing apartment on Fifth Avenue and 10th Street, and I thought I had arrived—and then I realized, ‘I’m claustrophobic here.’” The move bore some pretty stellar developments: airy surroundings (pictured here), a new, everyday jewelry line called Dream Collective (to live alongside her luxe one), and friends/creative partners who also call Silverlake home.“I moved out here and didn’t know anybody, which was awesome because I had done enough socializing in 10 years in New York to hold me over for a while. And I kept thinking I’d move back to New York for the first two years, but I’m so glad I stayed. I’ve met the best people.”“I found this place through Craigslist. The girl who was renting it—we have a lot of friends in common, and she ended up writing my bio on my website. It’s a weird, small world.”“It’s a Craftsman-style apartment, and the guy that owns it also owns this restaurant here called Little Dom’s. He totally refurbished the apartment back to its early 1900s form. He redid the tile and made sure that all the door knobs and fixtures were like the originals.”“Clare Vivier [Ed: an amazing handbag designer who we featured on this very site] lives across the street from me. When I moved in, she just came by and introduced herself, and now she’s my partner at the store Vivier and Bentley where I also do pretty much all of the assembly work for Dream Collective.”“Roman Alonso of Commune [Ed: a really tremendous lifestyle brand] lives in the apartment directly above me. His company opened up a shop at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs called Community Shop, which was one of the first places to carry Dream Collective. So was Mohawk General Store, which is  just down the street from me. In the beginning, it was all in the neighborhood.”Images courtesy of Juan Enriquez. Kathryn’s second edition is as killer as her home. Get her super-fun evil eye cuff while you can!