Today we’d like to introduce you to Nik Kienitz
Hi Nik, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I have been an artist all my life. I started very young, everyone in my family was some kind of artist or creative. They started teaching me what they knew. I fell in love with creating and never looked back. Over the years I have pursued many creative interests, I dabbled in painting, drawing, sewing, performance art, glass, sculpture the list goes on, but ultimately landed on jewelry/metalworking.
In my teen years my family had a little shop in our hometown of Heber City. We filled the store with things our family had made, Jewelry being one of those. My mother first taught me how to make jewelry, Mostly bead linking and wire jewelry. I stuck with it for many years, long after the family shop had gone. Just as a hobby. I’m a pretty fashionable person so it was great to be able to make something for myself whenever.
Eventually I wanted to further my skills and taught myself wire wrapping/ weaving. People really took notice of the stuff I was wearing so I decided start selling my work. It went really well to the point of me wanting to grow my skills even more. In my mid twenties I decided to take my first metalsmithing class, I took to it immediately!
I have been growing my skills in this medium for 8 years now and the journey has been amazing! I have taken dozens of different workshops in many different
Areas of jewelry making, met so many amazing instructors and friends in this community and even became an instructor myself.
I currently work with Salt City Smithery and the UofU life long learning as an instructor helping people start their creative journey and showcase my works in events/local shops all over Utah. I’m very happy where the journey has taken me so far and excited to see where it will lead.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think like every journey, it’s had ups and downs. My biggest struggle that I feel I have dealt with would be, pushing through the overwhelming nature of everything taken on working for yourself as a creative.
Social media manager, advertising, making your work, shipping, sales person etc, I was very use to working for company’s where all these things were a different department. Learning to take it all on was a challenge as the creative side is more my strong suit but absolutely worth overcoming.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Although I have tried many different creative outlets, I am a jewelry artist. I make wearable art that is as unique and beautiful as the person getting it.
I have a deep love for the natural world and much of my inspiration comes from that. I also find anything art nouveau to be extremely stimulating to my creativity.
Because of that I find myself creating things from nature a lot and am probably most known for my bugs and creative eye.
I’ve tried all types of methods to create fun creepy crawlers, some from wire, casting deceased bugs or hand fabricating them from sheet or scrap metal. With and without enamels, some with glass bodies some with shells.
I just absolutely love the endless possibilities with bugs and I think people just enjoy seeing something a little different. Especially when I’m able to incorporate very different techniques to make something completely unique
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I definitely feel like it will become a bit more popular over the next few years. I’ve been noticing more and more studios opening offering one day workshops, and family oriented lessons making this field a bit more accessible for people to try.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.frequentlyunique.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frequentlyunique/profilecard/?igsh=NnZwdHhoaHFqczdw
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1E65gjpjwd/?mibextid=wwXIfr
