We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Garrison a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Nicole, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I was dealt a rough hand at life and was born into a family of addicts. My siblings and I were taken from our parents at an early age. I learned from that moment on that I was on my own. I was adopted at the age of 4 into an even worse home where I suffered years of abuse at the hands of my so called parents. My entire childhood consisted of some sort of abuse. I was very determined to break away from that life and grow my own into something beautiful. I threw myself into different projects and crafts over the years but nothing was really satisfying enough. I was constantly seeking more. More fulfillment and more joy. That’s when I found wire wrapping crystals.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I finally found my passion in creating works of art by wire wrapping crystals and stones. I started out by watching YouTube videos of other creators works and learning how to wrap. My very first pieces were a horrendous mess, haha! But through many hours of practice and repetition I was able to finally create beautiful works of art. I am still expanding my knowledge daily and trying out new wraps all the time.
I currently have some of my pieces being sold at Infinity Wellness and Massage in Hermantown as well as Ritual Salad in Duluth MN. Over the summer I was vending at different events and farmers markets and plan to expand that in the upcoming year.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think the biggest thing when I was starting out was giving myself some grace and remembering that I was new to the craft so I wasn’t going to be amazing right away. Another big one is pushing forward when things got hard. There were a lot of times I would have a big event coming up and I would have to make quite a bit of jewelry. I would experience a sort of “writers block” or craft block and not be able to create anything new. I had to frequently remind myself to keep going and to look towards the bigger goal of having this as a full time business.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
Definitely my kids! They push me daily to be the best mother and person I can be. That includes modeling hard working resilient behaviors for them to follow. I am constantly working towards giving them the best life.
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