Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Nehama.
Hi Sarah, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I learned how to make jewelry in Boston at the historic North Bennett Street School. I already had a degree in art history, which informs my work a lot, but I needed the technical skills to bring my jewelry ideas into reality.
After the 18-month program at North Bennett Street, I studied gold granulation with goldsmith Cecilia Bauer at her NYC studio. Granulation is an ancient technique of fusing gold allowing intricate patterns to be made on a 22k gold surface using tiny gold balls. If you look at ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan jewelry, you will see many gold pieces with granulation.
In 2005 I started collecting antique mourning and sentimental jewelry, primarily pieces from the late 18th – early 19th century, but including pieces as early as mid-17th century and as late as 1930. On the advice of an older antique jewelry dealer, I started buying to sell in order to “fund my addiction”, as she put it. My understanding of jewelry making techniques and jewelry styles has served me well when looking at and buying antique pieces.
In 2012, after volunteering to photograph their extensive mourning jewelry collection, I co-curated an exhibition entitled “In Death Lamented: The Tradition of Anglo-American Mourning Jewelry”, with the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston- the oldest historical society in the US. I wrote the book by the same name, which they published. After that I began giving lectures on historic mourning and sentimental jewelry and have continued to do so to this day. I’ve done online talks for the American Society of Jewelry Appraisers, the Maine Historical Society, and The American Society of Jewelry Historians, to name a few. And, I’ve given in-person talks from NY to LA, London, Adelaide, Australia, and twice in the Netherlands.
I’m still making one of a kind handmade jewelry pieces in my Providence-area studio while also running my antique jewelry business.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road, especially at the beginning! I don’t manufacture or mass produce jewelry- each piece I make is unique and hand-crafted, so you really need a specific market. I was trying to sell my work through juried shows, both wholesale and retail. I wasn’t really making that much money to make it worthwhile, with travel and time out of the studio. In addition, I felt frustrated because most galleries with hand-made work like mine wanted things on consignment, so to have my inventory tied up between several galleries was not working for me.
When the my last consignment gallery switched over to diamond jewelry, I decided to make a go of it by doing private sales and selling more online. By this time I was starting to think about also selling the antique jewelry I loved collecting, and once I started doing that, and getting my book out there, doing talks, etc,, things took off.
Managing my time is still somewhat of a challenge because I literally do everything except the commercial photography. But I love what I do, and don’t think I could be happy working for someone else, so I don’t mind.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I make jewelry by hand in silver and 22K gold with gemstones- all one of a kind pieces. I also will take commission work, but not repairs.
I’m known for my use of special gemstones, which are not the ubiquitous faceted precious stones, but more unusual things like cabochon quartzes and agates with inclusions, amber with insects, and things like carved aquamarines, fossils, meteorites, and natural branch coral. Unique to me are also my “Ancestor Rings”- silver rings set with an antique tintype photo under rock crystal quartz. These were inspired by my love of antique photographic jewelry from the 19th century.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I would love to focus more on more high-karat gold granulation and lecturing at to a sell-out crowd at Madison Square Garden (lol)!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sarahnehama.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahnehama for my antiques, and https://www.instagram.com/sarahnehamajewelry for my own work
