What you’ll learn in this episode:   How Nicola allows for spontaneity in her work, and how she decides when a piece is done Why the texture and physical sensation of jewelry is just as important as its aesthetic Why Nicola hopes her jewelry connects the wearer to nature How Nicola has forged successful relationships with galleries throughout Europe How metals can combine to create harmonious color combinations   About Nicola Heidemann Nicola Heidemann is a German art jeweler who seeks, through her work, to express her closeness to nature. Heidemann is interested in the ways the shapes and colors of the natural environment inform our sense of beauty, and she considers herself to be a collector—of allusions, impressions, associations.   Additional Resources: Nicola’s Website Nicola’s Instagram   Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com Transcript: Like nature itself, Nicola Heidemann’s jewelry can never be completely controlled. Using heat coloring techniques to create jewelry that evokes the beauty of the natural world, Nicola allows the material to tell her when the piece is finished. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the materials she uses the most; why the ability to touch and carry her jewelry is central to her work; and why she hopes her jewelry bonds the wearer to nature. Read the episode transcript here.     Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it’s released later this week.   Today, my guest is Nicola Heidemann. She’s based in Germany, in Stuttgart, and she founded Nicola Heidemann Jewelry. I had first seen her at Schmuck before Covid. Schmuck, for those of you who don’t know, is the annual—I call it a trade show. Everybody knows it. I ask if you’re going to Munich or you’re going to Schmuck, and it’s the same thing. She was at a table at a popup that was all over the city, but there were a couple of people who had stopped to look at her jewelry. I would have missed her totally, but it was this small group that made me curious. I stopped to look, and I was really taken by the blues and greens in her work and the shapes she uses in crafting her jewelry. It’s also very deceptive. If you were to put it down on grass or on stones at the beach, it would be hard to tell her jewelry apart. It also looks heavy and it’s very, very light.    Today, she’ll tell us about her philosophy when it comes to both jewelry and metal and also nature, which plays a very important part in what she does. Welcome to the podcast, Nicola.   Nicola: Thank you, Sharon. Thank you for inviting me. Hi.   Sharon: Hi. You have a lot of inspiration from nature. Do you see colors in everything, other colors? You have so much that’s blue and green. You get inspiration from nature, but is it from all nature, or only the sky or the ocean, which is blue, and grass?   Nicola: Nature for me is indeed the most important inspiration. I think our sense of beauty is informed by nature, by the shapes you find in nature, by the colors, the color combinations. That’s my idea, to work in color combinations which you could find in nature as well. In nature, you don’t have monochromatic colors or colors which are not matching to each other. This is my inspiration indeed.    Sharon: I saw some red, for instance. It’s unusual for you. I saw a piece that had red in it. The inspiration for the red, and you have on a purple dress, do those come from nature or do they come from other places?   Nicola: Yes, of course. Reds you can find in flowers or in volcanic soils. Red is quite a common color in nature, but the reason why you don’t see red in so many pieces of mine is that my main material I use is titanium. Titanium has a big range of plain color possibilities which don’t include red, so I can make it blue and green and turquo