Like many other young artists and designers (and ironically even Alice in Wonderland), Sarah Barney had to leave the nest before realizing that a place is just a place. It’s all what you make of it.
Growing up on Cape Cod, Sarah’s early career in jewelry started while working in a local bead store after school where she envisioned more than just what the local ladies were buying to string up.
“I’ve always been inspired by found pieces and reworking each element to create something new whether it was in the bead store or throughout my career in jewelry and fashion. There is something very special about searching for each little piece, each with a history of it’s own, and making it into a whole new design. It’s like taking little bits of history and someone else’s memories and recreating it fresh, ready for new memories and sentiments,” says Barney.
In the fall of 1999, Sarah decided to step it up and moved to Brooklyn, New York to study sculpture at the Pratt Institute of Art where she created a tight network of artists and designers who all worked together to build each other up with criticisms and support.
In 2005, she worked as the production manager of the ultra feminine Ginette NY and then joined the Men’s Division at David Yurman as a product engineer.
After 10 years in New York City Sarah moved back to the Cape and is now launching her own line which is greatly influenced by the seascapes of her youth, the gritty industrialism of Brooklyn, and the glamor of New York City.
“I came home for a whole lot of different reasons. The main one being I wanted to spend more time with my son. The thoughts of starting my own designs had been planted a long time before but I had always pushed them back. There were a lot of practical reasons why leaving the city made sense for me and I came to realize that my need to create was getting much stronger. I was terrified to leave the city because Fort Greene had become home for me, but I knew I was ready then to take the jump,” she says.
The first collection of Sarah Barney’s jewelry debuted this past Spring 2010 and now it’s debuting in its first giveaway on EcoSalon.
We love her Alice necklace in all its vintage charm and gold dipped glory. Unscrew the vial with a tag next to it that says “Drink Me,” and you can shrink down into your own fantasy world the likes of which Lewis Carroll would totally approve.
Do you like? Want to try winning? Then leave a comment below.
(Legalese: Contest rules and FTC compliance.)