We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rachel Nerdahl a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My most unique craft is Viking Knit or Viking Weave. I learned how to do it about 15 years ago from my Grandma and I loved the craft right away. The skill of looping and pulling wire was probably made more intuitive by my youthful love of friendship bracelets and knots, In high school I remember sitting around at a dining table full of boys and teaching them how to make their own. I’ve always loved art and took as many classes as I could in my school days, staying busy with ceramics, beading, or simply doing my nails. As I started learning Viking Knit I had so many ideas but unfortunately there weren’t any websites or videos offering techniques or even photos so I just had to figure it out! Now maybe I could be a resource for someone else.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

The thing that really keeps me excited about my craft and moving forward is the Renaissance Faire. Minnesota Ren Faire is my home faire but I have had the opportunity to travel and work at 5 of these magical places across the US and within the next couple of years I hope to have my very own booth. I also have a unique niche within the kink world with some of my paintings and jewelry styles. Art provides us with escapes and solutions in a really hard world. You can focus on feelings or colors and sometimes neither. Practicing any art I think helps bring us understanding and intuition of the world around us and in ourselves.
Viking Knit is not a common form of embellishment or jewelry making but it is one that predates the practice of chainmail! I have a lot of fun working with clients on their dream projects. Recently I had a helm commissioned, it was all argentium silver and on a larger scale than any of my previous projects had been. I have also made some of my daintiest pieces in the past year and all these different scales and projects are a mosaic of years of creating and honing my skills.
I also have a lot of practice with painting and it’s nice having different skill sets to bounce back and forth between.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Craft markets in general are not for me. They’re everywhere and can be so fun but I generally don’t have great sales. I learned that they just aren’t the right space for my items, that the time and energy that goes into them doesn’t actually make me any money. It’s really important to find the right groups of people or events so that you can really be seen and your art enjoyed and sold so that you can financially keep going and emotionally be motivated to keep creating. I had a really bad show a couple of years ago, my rent was depending on it, and it was a well advertised and known stop at an art crawl. What. A. Flop. I barely made my table fee and it was all because the crowd lost their access to us because of food lines. I had to step away for quite awhile and find my own way and make my own plans.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Well I think almost all of us have some sort of creative outlet where we use our brain or body differently. It can be organized or chaotic, busy or simple. I want to have more joy and fulfillment in my life and art does that for me. I want to make it and be surrounded by it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Nearthevalleyvw
• Other: I’m working on a website.