Jewelry Artist Podcast: We Wield the Hammer with Karen Smith

Doing good is built into the work of Karen Smith, an advocate for women artists of color, and an inspiring guest on Jewelry Artist podcast.

All photos courtesy of Karen Smith

Join Karen Smith on Jewelry Artist Podcast

Karen shares more of her story and insights with podcast host Katie Hacker on Jewelry Artist. Listen to the interview below and read on to discover more about this force for good.

Self Taught and Many Selves

Informed and infused by her woman-self, black-self, Buddhist self, and aging self: this is how the self-taught metal artist and educator describes her art. Smith designs and fabricates bespoke wearable art and small sculptures, primarily in silver, in her studio in Durham, North Carolina. Her work, like her life, she says, can be minimalist or maximalist. She described, in a 2018 Etsy interview, her design style as “bold without being huge; it’s got texture and loves the light; it’s feminine and black and beautiful. All the things that I like to think I am.”

Smith points out how elements of her Buddhist practice can be seen in her ZenSpin ring. Her cultural heritage as African-American informs the mud-cloth-inspired pieces and masks she creates. And the spirits of the women who were never able to “wield the hammer” are imbued in her work in circles, curves, and textures that represent power, light, and the feminine.

Not only does Smith wield a hammer, she brandishes a torch, files, saws and more as she fold forms, forges, solders, and sets stones. But time spent in 2018 to study with a master goldsmith in Dakar, Senegal, revealed a void of women in metalsmithing, inspiring her to advocate for change.

Inspired to Reach and Teach

The only woman metalsmith in the artists’ village, she soon heard that “Women don’t wield the hammer.” The saying has been passed down father to son for centuries in this West African country known for its goldwork. She says the women and girls there didn’t know what to make of her, telling a story of a young girl who stood silently in the doorway of the studio every day to watch her work. Smith tried to engage her, but she just stared. The goldsmith’s son explained that the girl thought Smith was a ghost, having never seen a woman doing what she was doing.

“For whatever reason—gender, class, tradition—women and girls of African descent are not privy to this artistry,” Smith shared in a virtual artist talk, broadcast via The Crucible, an industrial arts school in West Oakland where Smith wa an educator. “I thought if this girl wants to learn, who will teach her?” That experience inspired Smith to form in 2019 the non-profit We Wield the Hammer (WWTH). The mission is to offer opportunity for artistic equity, economic empowerment, and access to a vocation traditionally unavailable to such women.

The project includes a series of eight-week sessions designed to introduce the art of metalsmithing using copper, brass, and sterling silver. As part of the project, WWTH will become an official urban apprenticeship program by 2021, and the intent is to extend it to Dakar. Smith has been incubating the initiative locally, housed at The Crucible until Covid hit. Immediate needs, she says, in addition to funding which has been challenging to raise, is dedicated studio space. Rio Grande is a partner in the program, accepting donations of scrap metal in its name, as well as maintaining a wish list for donors to help WWTH build its studio. (You can find other ways to help at the We Wield the Hammer site.)

Share It

An advocate for women of color in the artistry and invocation of jewelry making, Smith has been sharing the work of other artists on social media, hashtagging #BlackWomenJewelers, #SupportBlackArt, and #BIPOCJewelryDesigners to ensure #LookAtUs, #WeAreNotATrend. She’s inspired by the increasing dialogue among Black Indigenous People of Color jewelry designers online to engage the industry on issues of diversity, equality, equity, and access to opportunity.

Jewelry style expert Deborah Yonick writes the Trends column for Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. This post is excerpted from “Pay It Forward: Three women jewelry artists of color celebrate their art and advocate for change” in the November/December 2020 issue.

Originally published 10/14/2020. Updated 2/23/2023.