Michelle Guest transforms her day-to-day life in Washington into millimeter-by-millimeter drawings for metalsmiths overseas, who then turn her ideas into children’s jewelry.
Where do you get your design ideas? Everywhere. The design for a necklace I just made came from a tattoo on the back of a girl in Sushiko in Glover Park. It was an hourglass with a saying inscribed next to it — “This too shall pass.”
What’s your process? After I come up with an idea or concept, I put it down on paper. I draw, to the millimeter, every dimension of the design. Then I decide on stones and I scan and e-mail the images to the metalsmiths overseas.
How did you learn the design process? Starting to learn about jewelry making was not easy. I was working at a law firm during the day and all I would do at night is scour the Internet and try to scope out the whole process. I researched for about a year while working in the law firm, and then started my own company, MIJA Jewelry.
How did you go from law to jewelry? I didn’t go to school for design — I studied film — and I knew nothing about jewelry at all … I was visiting my sister in London and she had a broken pearl necklace, so I took a pearls from that and made bracelets for my nieces, placing one pearl on a thin gold chain. At that point, there was little-to-no children’s jewelry on the market.
How many designs do you draw a year? Ideas and concepts usually come to me in spurts. Around January and February, for weeks I was just designing and drawing. So my designs typically get drawn in collections — I have 60 to 70 designs being made right now.
– Hayley Peterson
