All that Glitters

Jewellery making is the perfect path for 25-year-old Nikki Soons, who has loved art and metalwork since school. By Amanda Sachtleben

Jeweller Nikki Soons says a good jeweller is creative and disciplined. She loves the satisfaction of completing a piece after starting with nothing but a drawing. "It's seeing the piece you've made once it's all finished and knowing where you've come from," she says.

Her trademark pieces are charm bracelets, with miniatures as detailed as a tiny gold lemon slice on the side of a 2cm silver cocktail glass.

Since graduating from Unitec's Bachelor of Design, now the Bachelor of Design and Visual Arts (Contemporary Craft), in Auckland in 2005, she's been part of many exhibitions and sells her jewellery at galleries in Auckland, Napier and Christchurch.

She also works part-time for Auckland contemporary jeweller Joanna Campbell, who is herself a graduate of the Unitec programme.

When she left Carmel College on Auckland's North Shore, Nikki wanted to be a painter. "I've always been creative, I spent a lot of time in the art room at school and I had a really great teacher who let me hang out in there."

But even her paintings showed her talent for the miniature. "I painted everything on a very small scale," Nikki says. "I love detail."

She knew friends who had found it hard to make a living from being a painter. Her mother, a salesperson for a jewellery firm, suggested the jewellery major. Nikki had also never lost the passion for woodwork and metalwork she had as a college student.

The first year of the degree introduced her to various types of art and the theory behind them, including architecture, pop art, and body adornment.

The course didn't just teach the creative aspects of the profession. She learned about doing your own taxes and researching market prices for jewellery.

Like painting, jewellery making can be challenging financially, and Nikki combines it with working in a café. Some of her jewellery is sold through retailers on a sale or return basis, so she makes no money if the shop can't sell a piece.

Setting up a basic home studio with a bench, tools, soldering iron and other materials cost her about $3000.

"My parents gave me a loan for tools and set me up with a studio. I was lucky I could work straight away but a lot of people have to work to save up for that."

She says jewellery graduates can choose to make either fashion pieces which are mass produced, or limited edition pieces for galleries and exhibitions. Her signature bracelets fetch $1200, with other pieces starting at about $100.

Nikki aims to make jewellery her full-time career, and is looking for more retail outlets to sell through. She's also getting a website set up for online sales and promotion of her work.

She says the first year of the degree was full on straight out of secondary school, but advises anyone thinking about doing tertiary training in jewellery making and design to stick with it.

"It was about banging the works out, like ten works a day, and about ideas and process and materials. But it's so worth it when you get to your major. Once I got there I never looked back."