We recently connected with Sara B. Biniecki and have shared our conversation below.
Sara, we appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
Out of all of the possible questions with which you presented me, this is the one that feels most challenging and meaningful. It actually makes me tearful and emotional. Both of my parents have impacted my creative life tremendously, but in very different ways.
My mom and I used to joke that we were born in the wrong decades. She would have loved to live a “Little House on the Prairie” existence, and she knew that with my teenage passion for music, movies, art, culture, etc., that I would have loved to have come of age in the 60’s + 70’s. My mom loved the simple things in life. She took great pleasure in slowly cooking meals from passed down family recipes, baking pies that filled the house with their delicious aromas, sewing our clothes and Halloween costumes when we were little, peacefully washing the dishes at the kitchen sink while gazing out into our little backyard, and simply just loving and taking care of her family. She seemed to do all those things like meditations. She was present, she was peaceful, she was joyful. (Not 100% of the time, mind you. She was human, after all!) She wasn’t frilly or into fashion, she loved the color navy blue, she liked music, but it didn’t matter to her what was popular; she just liked what she liked.
My dad, on the other hand, is an avid adventurer and outdoorsman. He delights in sunshine and open water and forest canopies. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a scuba diver, and a dive instructor. My dad is a social dude. He is a retired Sheriff with 40 years of police work under his belt and a life built around community. He has loved, and been wonderful at, helping and serving in my little hometown. We knew from a young age that taking a “quick trip” to the store with dad usually resulted in him chatting to a local buddy or stranger for at least 20 extra minutes! The man sure can tell a story and captivate an audience, both young and old alike. He’s got a sense of humor and a way with making folks feel comfortable. My dad also found a love for hiking and backpacking in his later years to add to his outdoor adventure portfolio. He enjoys the journey as much as the destination. He really just loves to DO things. He builds all sorts of things, he grows and tends to his gardens, he cans and preserves food, and has a work ethic that just won’t quit.
It is no surprise from what I just wrote that my parents divorced when I was in my early teens. And though that was a difficult and very defining piece of my life, I undoubtedly love both of my parents and the character with which they blessed me. I am ME because of THEM. I truly believe the ways in which they saw and lived life so differently has infused me with the best of each of them. I am a creative and maker because of the things I learned from them. I make slowly and intentionally, like my mother, but with the dedication and tireless work ethic of my father. My jewelry making is inspired by the adventures I have taken and the places to which I have traveled, because of my love of the outdoors instilled by my dad and the adventures I have taken WITH my dad; my favorite being a rim-to-rim backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon. I am able to spin the meaningful life stories, and sometimes mourning, of my client friends into beautiful heirlooms for them in the same way my mother baked a pie for a loved one or crocheted a blanket for a friend having a newborn baby. I love to care for people through my jewelry and inspire them with it. I can be very social and talk to strangers for hours about rocks and special places, just as my dad would sling jokes or Great Lakes shipwreck stories. It may have taken me many, many adult years to understand them both, but I am so very grateful for the attributes that I have gleaned from each of them. They are my biggest cheerleaders and supporters. My mom from the beyond through her spirit and gentle nudges to keep doing what I love. (RIP Sharon B. – I love you. And fuck cancer!) And my dad from here Earth-side, talking me up, proudly wearing my bolos and gifting my jewels, and always engaging with genuine interest in my crazy rock and fossil talk. (Love you, pops.)
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I am a jewelry designer, metalsmith, and lapidary artist residing in the beautiful Midwest. I can barely believe it, but I’ve been creating jewelry for nearly 20 years now! I am a mostly self-taught jeweler, with a few great teachers and mentors along the way. Though most of what I learned was through trial by fire (literally) and lots of errors. My days rockhounding the shores of Lake Huron in my youth and my weekends of slinging my handmade macramé jewelry in my early twenties set the foundation for my creative jewelry career and life-long quest for collecting gorgeous gems and fossils to capture in my work.
When you grow up in The Great Lakes State of Michigan, you are bound to be inspired by the rocks and fossils strewn about the shore of every gorgeous lake; and I was no exception. I have bags and jars and boxes full of Great Lakes goodies, some of which were collected by me decades ago. I love the natural world and find it infinitely inspiring. But I was also inspired to make jewelry by other parts of my childhood, like my Grandma B., who donned a jet-black beehive style hairdo, dressed in the coolest clothes, and adorned herself head to toe in costume jewelry. I remember her letting us kids rifle through her jewelry boxes and drawers filled with rhinestone brooches, silk scarves, and big colorful jewels. Looking back, inspiration for what I do now was everywhere.
I now create jewelry as a side-business and creative outlet to my day job. I tend to create my one-of-a-kind designs slowly, in small batches. My nature-inspired jewelry collections feature gemstones, fossils, Mother Nature’s oddities, and sometimes found objects and upcycled interesting bits. My work is constructed by hand using traditional metalsmithing techniques and tools. I design, fabricate, and solder the sterling silver settings, curate the stones, and sometimes even cut and polish some of the stones I use in my work.
My specialty is sterling silver jewelry with clean, minimal, modern settings and big, bold, beautiful gemstones. I am most well-known for my large modern cocktail rings, my massive double stone rings, and my unique stone pairings. However, I also adore turning tiny fossils and stones into itty bitty miniature adornments. I am fascinated by natural history, so unexpected fossils and other natural curiosities often make appearances in my work. I love pairing an ancient relic with polished semi-precious gemstones and brightly brushed silver. My work is also influenced by minimalist and modern design. Simple and uncomplicated designs make me happy, so I tend to forego excessive ornamentation in favor of clean, understated lines that complement the shapes of the stones and fossils with which I create.
What do you find most rewarding about being creative?
For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist/creative is the people with whom I have the honor of working. I have been truly blessed with the most wonderful clients, many of which have turned into friends. I am deeply grateful that they continue to choose me to tell their stories through jewelry. Whether it is a piece made for celebrating, a piece made for mourning, or a piece made for empowering, I am always so honored to create something special to tell a part of their life’s story, and in turn, become a small part of it, too. There is so much connection in this making; connection with the Earth, connection with people, connection to my own body, to its limits and its talents. My favorite moments are seeing someone open up one of my little boxes to see their new jewelry for the first time. The way they hold it, inspect it, adore it, and finally, gently place it on their body. I swear there is a bond that happens in that moment where we are forever connected to each other. It is a beautiful thing and one of my greatest joys as a maker.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I don’t share this often or lightly, as it is difficult to tell and very personal. But it is a big part of my life and who I am, so I will share some small details. I was forced to pivot my life and jewelry career almost a decade ago when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease (which I will not name here, because I don’t like to give it power). At first, I had a lot of trouble with numbness in my fingers, hands, and arms along with overall weakness and fatigue. It was a terrifying time in my life, and a very stressful one, as I had just lost my mom to cancer a year earlier. Thankfully, I found the right resources to guide me to a wonderful integrative health doctor and proper nutrition, and I had a great group of friends in my life to support me when I really needed them. I have worked extremely hard over the years and have done many challenging things for my health that most people wouldn’t consider so that I can keep my symptoms at bay.
Being forced to pivot – to reassess my life, to take time away from jewelry, to take time away from exercise and biking and things that I had loved to do, and to find my way through the new diagnosis was a life changing experience. But I am nothing but grateful for ALL of that experience. While I know that in the end, things could be very scary someday, it changed my life for the better in so many other ways. It made me realize that I just need to keep creating and keep making what I love; it keeps me moving forward. I also like to think it made me a more present person. Every hike that I go on, every time I am in my jewelry studio, each piece of silver that I use my hands to hammer or solder, each yoga pose I hold, I remind myself of how grateful I am for the continued use of this amazing body of mine! These human suits are an easy thing to overlook and neglect; until one day you are faced with the uncertainty of what you may or may not be able to do and for how long. My message to anyone would be, show your body gratitude NOW for all that it does for you. Take care of it and treat it well. (And maybe gift it a nice piece of handmade jewelry!)
Contact Info:
- Website: sarabjewelry.com
- Instagram: @sarabjewelry
- Facebook: facebook.com/sarabjewelry
Image Credits
Michelle Craig Photography