MY PATH
My story
from web designer to jewelry artisan
I'm Herika, I was born among the sounds, smells and frost of Turin. I started from a young age to explore materials, design clothes and do handicrafts. Over time, the passion for the world of art, geometries and aestheticism grows in me.
Today I live in Florence, where in 2011 I decided to change course, one fine day I rebel against technology and I discover that I can create so much beauty with my hands. I give up my role as a web designer and open my first artisan jewelry workshop, where I develop my ideas by forging the material.
THE ORIGINS OF A STORY
My story begins, quite curiously, in the city that has always been the most closely tied to industry in Italy: Turin. Here, I spent my carefree childhood before moving, even before adolescence, to a small town in the Bergamasca province. It is here that I started to cultivate my passion for creativity and craftsmanship, even though at this stage, my experiences were still embryonic and mostly limited to school activities. Photography, graphic design, website development, basic programming, art, and the dream of attending the Academy of Fine Arts. But as often happens, fate had other plans for my life.
This brings us to the third major move, the first one I made on my own, the first one in my adult life. Florence is a dream come true, a safe haven where I could finally try to bring to life all the dreams I had been carrying with me since childhood. Yet, even here, the transition to craftsmanship, to making jewelry, was still a distant dream. I had to wait almost a decade before Nokike came to life. The first workshop was in a small loft at home. At that time, metalworking was not yet part of the process. I began with the concept of ethical and responsible jewelry, using reclaimed materials, reassembled from their previous uses, and focusing on exploring alternative shapes and compositions.
"The name Nokike has a personal and profound meaning: it represents the changes that the wind brings with it. It was born by chance from an incorrectly interpreted Japanese term, but its meaning has remained unchanged for me. I truly believe in the power of Mother Nature, which is an inexhaustible source of inspiration."
HANDMADE AND UNIQUE JEWELRY: NOKIKE IS BORN
Nokike's first real workshop is the one in Via del Campuccio, in the Santo Spirito district of central Florence. An area of artistic tradition and Florentine workshops . Here, in addition to starting to work with metals, the first contacts with classical and modern goldsmith techniques also take place, as well as the need to study and deepen one's knowledge of them. What will be the definitive work project begins to take shape. The study of materials and their use merges with the ability to combine their processing through learned techniques such as lost wax casting and electroforming, resin processing, ceramics, stone setting and sand casting. Nokike takes its place within the life of the neighborhood and I begin to think that perhaps it can try to carve out an even more central role in the Florentine artisan panorama. My style is finally determined: the creation of unique artisan jewelry with an unmistakable contemporary style.
From Via del Campuccio I moved to the nearby Via dei Serragli in 2015 and here, even today, my Atelier Nokike is the work center of my experience as a goldsmith artisan . Years, professional and life experiences have passed since those days (and nights) spent on that mezzanine. What has never changed is the enthusiasm for my work that still today pushes me to improve and to search for new solutions that can further stimulate my professional research and daily feed the satisfaction of the people who frequent my shop.