"Which one drew you in?" Memphis George asks a woman who stepped into her booth at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Artists Market.

She had been walking past in the measured but steady pace visitors adopt in order to see everything, and then it happened, as it often does with Ms. George's work: The woman focused in on a particular piece of jewelry and broke stride to stop and examine it.

Among rows of artisans, Ms. George stands out. Her jewelry is unique, her range wide, her expression eccentric. Her attention to and respect for technique puts her squarely within craft tradition, while her need to give in to eye and whimsy trips her over the line to artist.

Cast bronze, gold, gemstones and beads, carved camel bone skulls and Swarovski crystals, sterling silver and resin exist side by side in necklaces that are as carefully composed as a painting.

It follows that Ms. George -- a Washington, Pa., resident whose given name is Michelle Sabol -- was an abstract painter and avant-garde filmmaker before turning to jewelry with a visual edge.

"I'm all about experimentation and figuring out different ways to work with material," she says. "What can I do with that? How can I take it and make it really original?"

One characteristic of her work that ensures its originality is her ability to accent and dismiss preciousness at the same time. And within chaos there's order.

One necklace includes a London blue topaz, tourmaline, Thai yellow sapphires ... and a section of a wasp nest. Her studio was infested with large spiders -- Ms. George makes a gesture indicating the size of her palm -- which was particularly distressing because she had to capture them and toss them outside -- "I don't kill things."

Then wasps moved in and began eating the arachnids. The necklace was created "with thanks to the wasps who ate my spiders." While the domed nest with gilded images of wasps dominates, off to one side dangles a small eight-legged creature made of sparkling apatite, a gemstone not well known to the general public.

Some of her work combines other interests. The "juju series" includes, subtly, words from songs she's written. A necklace has a haiku poem on the back, composed for that particular piece. "Lily Pond" rings place resin-coated gemstones within lost wax cast bronze bases to mimic shaded pools.

Many pieces belie their complexity. For her brightly colored Plexiglas bracelets she prepares the material by heating it to an exact temperature, cuts and manipulates it, sets it with stones or Plexiglas flowers that she's built layer by layer, and then polishes each work.

That accomplished, she's ready to take on the next technique, material, style.

"One of the things that people ask me most often is, 'Where do you get your ideas?' " Ms. George says it amazes her that people think ideas come from outside, and one of her "juju" necklaces contains the phrase "practice imagination."

"I get my ideas by penetrating the place where original thought is. That's where art comes from."

Memphis George's booth is near the lotus fountain in Gateway Center through Tuesday. She will also exhibit at the Shadyside Arts Festival and A Fair in the Park, Mellon Park. For more information and work, visit www.memphisgeorge.com.

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