Fairuza Balk shifts from Hollywood to jewelry design, embraces metalwork and music

Fairuza Balk, the 51-year-old actress whose rise to fame came through 1990s cult classics, has unveiled a new career path: jewelry design. The former child star, who gained attention for her work in Return to Oz and The Craft, posted on social media earlier this month that she has left Hollywood to pursue metalworking full time. On September 12, she shared a sunlit selfie and a glimpse of a turquoise and sterling silver pendant she had crafted herself, signaling a transition from screen to studio.

In the message accompanying the image, Balk said her journey toward jewelry making began when her father started teaching her the craft, including welding, as the COVID-19 pandemic began in late 2019 and early 2020. She told her 233,000 Instagram followers that she was “in love” with the process and directed fans to a website where she had started selling T-shirts and merchandise featuring her own artwork. The post reinforced the arc of a multihyphenate career that has spanned acting, music and entrepreneurial ventures over several decades.

The shift into jewelry design sits alongside Balk’s broader artistic pursuits. Beyond her metalwork, she has continued to explore music, performing with her band and acting in various projects over the years. Balk is the lead singer of Armed Love Militia, a role that has kept her connected to the creative fields she has inhabited since childhood. In recent years she has also sold graphics of her most notable film roles, including The Craft, on her own platforms, and she has experimented with Cameos and other personal projects as part of her evolving public presence. The jewelry posts show off rings and bracelets she has crafted, underscoring a hands-on approach that contrasts with the on-screen performances that made her a household name decades ago.

Balk’s acting career began in childhood, with a pivotal turn as Dorothy in the 1985 film Return to Oz, a follow-up to The Wizard of Oz that cemented her as a rising star. She later appeared inThe Worst Witch and earned a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Almost Famous in 2000, a role that helped broaden her audience beyond cult-favorite fans. She also contributed voice work to animated series such as Family Guy and Justice League, demonstrating versatility across mediums. In 2018 she appeared in Hell Is Where the Home Is, and in 2020 she reprised her The Craft legacy with a cameo in The Craft: Legacy, a film that revisited the teen witch saga decades after the original.

The entrepreneur side of Balk’s career includes the once-prominent Panpipes Magickal Marketplace, an occult shop she owned and operated as part of her research for The Craft. She sold the store in 2001, a move that reflected a broader evolution away from a single-genre persona toward a more diversified artistic identity. While The Craft remains one of Balk’s defining credits, the ongoing spotlight on her varied creative endeavors demonstrates how performers increasingly blend cinema, music, visual art and crafts to shape their public profiles.

As Balk builds her jewelry-design portfolio, she continues to engage with fans through social media, sharing glimpses of new pieces, music projects and occasional acting roles. Her latest post arrives amid a larger trend of actors pursuing secondary crafts—be it jewelry, painting or other artisanal disciplines—and using those outlets to express direct, hands-on creativity outside traditional Hollywood paths. Balk’s fans, and those who followed her since her early breakout, are watching closely as she expands her repertoire while keeping the same sense of fearless exploration that defined her early work.

For readers who want to connect with Balk or share story tips, the communication channel she has used publicly remains a point of reference for fans curious about the artist’s evolving journey. While her next on-screen appearance is not confirmed, Balk’s pivot toward jewelry design highlights a broader trajectory in which established performers recalibrate their careers around personal craft, ownership of creative output, and the pursuit of new artistic identities. The evolution reflects a portrait of an artist who has never stalled in reinventing herself, embracing a hands-on, maker-centric path that complements her stage and screen legacy.