“Do it with passion, or not at all.”
~ Rosa Nouchette Carey
A beautiful path led me to this work. Although I didn’t pick up a torch until I turned 40, I’ve been driven to create since before I could read. I spent my childhood falling in love with the experience of adding beauty to the world using just my imagination and my hands. I painted and sketched for hours in the mornings before anyone else was awake. This continued on through my adolescence, while I also immersed myself in a natural love for science. I decided to pursue a career in medicine after high school.
I took a deep dive into the next two decades of my life, studying in coffee shops and anatomy labs, traveling abroad and finding myself. I put art aside, eventually graduated medical school and married my high school sweetheart. Just before starting my pediatric residency, we had our first child. I worked through residency as a new mom and had our next two babies not long after. The 80-hour work weeks toughened me up and built my resilience, but it took time to find balance and a rhythm and the space that would allow me to welcome art back into my life.
In 2019 I enrolled in my first course at a local metal arts school and I loved it. Then the pandemic started. The world shut down and time seemed to stop. I continued caring for patients but would ditch my scrubs at the end of each day and race to my workspace where my saw was waiting. It became my meditation. I began teaching myself the skills involved in jewelry hand fabrication, determined to learn how to create art from metal, from start to finish. I gradually built up my home studio and acquired the tools and the skills to produce the kind of jewelry that felt true to my vision. I eventually swapped out my desk for a professional jeweler’s bench and people began to connect with my work.
I like to think that the pieces I create are empowering, edgy, strong and sexy. I consider the natural contours of the human body and strive to create pieces that become one with the wearer. Interestingly enough, I rarely sketch my ideas and prefer feeling and intuition to lead the way in my designs when I am working with metal.
Enthusiasm, mindfulness and positivity remain pillars in my approach. I fully accept the triumphs, the failures and everything in between. I am grateful for the patience I am building while I work, and the privilege of being able to create from my heart.
Giving back to the community and collaborating with others is very important to me. I believe we must do what we can to support and lift each other up. It’s an honor to create pieces that offer joy in both direct and indirect ways. I hope you see something in my work, or in the way that I work, which inspires you the way that so many others have inspired me.
When I’m not covered in silver dust, I can be found hiking in the forest, enjoying life with my husband, three teenage kids & 2 pups, and continuing to care for children and young adults as an active pediatrician in Boston, MA.
Shira Hanna Designs offers a thoughtful collection of unique precious metal and gemstone jewelry.
Each piece is one-of-a-kind and fabricated by hand, one at a time.