A smiling 8-year-old sits at her
kitchen table, turning pieces of tin foil into shiny silver rings.
When they're ready, she proudly shows them off to everyone in the
vicinity! These days, Emily Hickman creates timeless hammered
sterling silver jewelry in her Shoreline, Washington, studio that is
sold in galleries and boutiques across the country.
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| A selection of Emily Hickman's sterling silver jewelry |
Every artist's path is unique, and
Hickman's was certainly circuitous. As a child, she was encouraged
to try every creative thing she could, from drawing and watercolor,
to pottery, papier mache, beaded jewelry and more. Her mother was an
artist, drawing the illustrations for department store newspaper ads
in the pre-digital age, so she witnessed art as a career early in
life.
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| The ever-popular rectangle pendant and earrings |
The childhood ring-making experience
shows an early love of jewelry, too. While her mother didn't wear
much, and encouraged Hickman “not to wear it all at once,” her
grandmother had a huge collection of costume jewelry. Hickman
inherited some of those pieces, and recalls having fun enjoying them
as a kid.
In High School, she got her first taste
of metalsmithing from a talented and encouraging teacher. But after
that, she pursued the more traveled road of entering the work force,
going through a series of boring, and physically demanding, jobs.
She didn't get back into jewelry making until her 40s, when she got
into bead work again. Soon it became too limiting, so she signed up
for metalsmithing classes at North Seattle Community College.
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| Emily Hickman in her colorful studio in Shoreline, Washington |
She knew almost immediately she wanted
to do jewelry professionally. She was told she'd never make a living
that way, so don't bother. “But I'm stubborn,” Hickman proudly
announced, and moved forward anyway. By this time, those physically
demanding jobs had taken a toll on her body, requiring foot surgery.
She was determined to find a new career before her body gave out
entirely.
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Teardrop pendant
with Moonstone |
As seems all too common, other events
conspired to appear to steer her away from this dream, but that
stubborn streak still won out. She got her business license on her
birthday, April 11th of 2006. In June that same year,
right as she was setting up her tent for her first retail show, she
was diagnosed with breast cancer. But rather than give it up, the
metalsmithing is just what kept her sane throughout that year of
treatment. Happily, she got a clean bill of health a year later.
She continued to take metalsmithing
courses for about three years altogether, acquiring bits and pieces
of equipment along the way to supply her own studio. A fair amount
of experimentation goes on during this phase of an artist's career.
Within the field of metalsmithing, there are many possible roads an
artist can choose to master: stone-setting, casting, enamels,
forging, lathe-turning, to name a few. A student learns them all to
find out what makes her heart sing. In that process, some dead ends
are inevitable.
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| More tools on the desk |
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| Storage chest full of tools |
Such was the case for Hickman, who had
three distinctly different lines at first. It seemed a good idea at
the time, because the potential market would be broad. Surely most
people would like at least one of those lines, the thinking goes.
Some art business classes helped her realize it's unwise to try to be
all things to all people. Choose one to focus on, and let the others
go. She chose the hammered silver line.
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| Wall of hammers for various purposes |
The first iteration of this line
features geometric shapes in gently-concave form with a hammered
surface in either a shiny or brushed finish. This collection still
makes up the foundation of her entire business. Hickman's goal was
to create jewelry with both an ancient and contemporary feel, that
“you could wear with either your blue jeans, or that little black
dress,” she says. To achieve that timeless feel, she emphasized
using tools that have been available since people first began working
with metal: silver sheet, silver wire, a saw, a hammer, a drill, and
a polishing method.
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| The Go-Go Necklace |
Another piece of Hickman's jewelry
philosophy is remaining neutral. Everything in her line is silver,
white, black or clear. No colored stones are ever used, because
“that would limit the clothing you could wear it with,” Hickman
says. “If I use a garnet, you'll only wear that necklace with your
red outfits.” Thus if a stone is added, it will be moonstone or
white pearls only. She emphasizes that her pieces are intended to be
interchangeable, too. You can have an exactly matched set if you
want, but you could also pair a particular pendant shape with a
differently shaped earring. Avoiding “trendy”, Hickman wants her
jewelry never to go out of style.
Hickman focused on the geometric
collection for the first two years of building her wholesale
production jewelry business, which began a little over two years ago
after some years of finding local consignment opportunities. By
focusing so carefully, she has been able to build her business
gradually, so that now her jewelry can be found in 17 states across
the country.
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| Floribunda pendant and earrings with black pearl |
With that foundation under her belt,
she allowed herself some leeway to experiment. In March of this
year, she introduced the Floribunda collection into the line, to
great success. Orders from her existing customers flooded in, and
new accounts were opened. While floral in shape, all other
components remain the same: sterling silver with a hammered surface.
Encouraged by Floribunda's success,
Hickman is now experimenting with a new collection. Inspirations for
this come from mid-19th-century jewelry artists such as Alexander
Calder and others who often worked in copper. Elements of Pacific
Islander culture come into play as well. These pieces are mostly
flat rather than domed, but maintain her line's consistency being
made of sterling silver with a hammered surface. None of these are
currently available in any shops, but we get a sneak peek at them
here, and some will make appearances at her trunk show at Manya Vee
Selects on July 19th.
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| Potential future collection |
What does Hickman's future hold? “I
saw a video a few years back about a 90-year old woman who was still
happily making jewelry. I want to be like that!” she says with a
huge smile. Her goal is to expand her wholesale business into all 50
states, “without getting so big that I can't make it all myself.”
Sounds to me that we can rest assured that we'll be able to enjoy
Hickman's jewelry, in all its as-yet-unseen interations, for many
years to come.
Enjoy the pictures below, which provide
an insight into some of the details that make up the world of a
production jeweler, as she shows us how she provides consistency for
quality control in the Floribunda collection.
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| Computerized flower patterns. Glue pattern to silver to saw out by hand. Sheet with flowers cut out, balls for centers. |
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| To give shape to the flat flower, it is placed in a dapping block, and a wooden dapper is tapped with a hammer. |
If you can't join us for our Emily Hickman trunk show on Thursday evening, July 19, from 5 - 8 pm, stop by later to see what new treasures from Emily we have in the store. Some of her Floribunda collection is available in
our online shop, too!
Manya Vee
