Christi Schimpke is a jewelry artist who founded Crash where she uses the cast off sheet metal of crashed exotic cars to form her beautiful jewelry. She has a master’s degree in Renaissance Art and worked for years at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. A metalsmithing class set her on a course to start her own jewelry business that she called Minabea, named after her grandmother. Christi’s husband Dan owns the Beverly Coachcraft collision repair shop where they repair new cars with an emphasis on high-end luxury marques. Seeing the damaged parts of Porsche’s, Maserati’s, Bentley’s and others Christi got an idea and Crash was born from the mangled parts of once beautifully crafted parts in to pieces of jewelry that is reimagined and made new again.
