We were lucky to catch up with Silje Engebretsen Herstad recently and have shared our conversation below.

Silje, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’m a third generation Goldsmith, so it was always in the cards for me. My love for jewelry has been there as long as i can remember and i’ve loved dressing up since i was a little kid. My grandfather started our family business which i’m currently spend most of my days at along side my parents, whom both are goldsmiths as well. My mother is an artist too. Mostly painting. I probably inherited my creative side from the both of them. I started my own business a couple of years ago. I mainly reuse silver cutlery to make earbuds, earrings, rings, pendants, bookmarks, armbands etc. The last year or so i’ve started experimenting with Jesmonite as well. I have some of my products available at Skaperverket in Oslo and at gullsmedsilje.no My dream is to be able to run my own business full time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Some of this i covered in my previous answer. The most rewarding thing for me is that i get to give life to old forgotten cutlery that’s been collecting dust in a drawer somewhere and haven’t seen the light of day in some time. Now they get a new lease at life and can really spark someones outfit and shine once again. As well as i have the opportunity to fix broken jewelry that’s very special to people. We repair jewelry in our store and that’s what separates us from most other jewelers out there. It makes it all worth it for me. If you have silver cutlery lying around feel free to shoot me a message and ask me if i can breathe some new life in to it.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding thing for me is to give new life to forgotten objects. To see a old fork or knife worn proudly in public. In a whole other domain than its originally intended for. With a new shape and form it now shines in a totally different way in a whole new area and is saved from collecting dust in a drawer somewhere.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I welcome all creative aspects of life. We are creative beings and too see so many of us express ourselves through creativity is really inspiring and help me in many ways too. Ideas can come from anything and they often come to me when i see creative work outside my own domain.

Contact Info:

• Website: gullsmedsilje.no
• Instagram: gullsmed_silje
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
All mine.