Recently, as I performed a standard scroll through social media, I stopped on a striking photograph of my friend Consuelo adorned in magical jewelry. I knew we had to get it in the store. Well it turns out, the designer is a pretty magical lady herself. Marika Emerson belongs to the posse of beautiful, talented women who work at Eden Boutique and her own line of "talismanic", metal-smithed jewelry is garnering some well-deserved attention. I'm proud to say we now stock Ay Marieke's Ojo and cuff designs at Backtalk. Marika shares some of her journey with us for our second installment of Designer's Talk Back:

Q: You recently launched Ay Marieke, your first independent endeavor into design, but you work at Eden with a host of other talented women and have been in the Portland design world for a while. What inspired you line's launch?

A: The line has been around since 2010, when I decided that I would need a name as an umbrella for the metalwork and jewelry designs I was making. I wanted something eponymous, but I also wanted to avoid being boring. My first name, Marika, comes from a Jacques Brel song called "Marieke" with the lyric, "Ay Marieke, Marieke."

This collection is the first formal offering I've put together – before Spring 2013 I would make one piece at a time, motivated solely by my own whim. A few of the pieces in the Spring collection are ones I have been making for awhile but the majority of it is new. I have this magical unicorn of a friend named Baxter who is an inspirational lightning rod for me. While he was visiting last autumn, we sat on my balcony during a rainstorm drawing together. I started getting all of these ideas – lots of ocular and mystical themes emerged in my sketches. Within a week I had 45 pieces sketched out, which led to months of prototyping and tweaking; I pretty much spent the whole winter finessing those designs.

As for my day job – working at Eden is the best! My boss, Cindy is a kind-hearted, talented and inspiring lady and I absolutely adore all of the other girls at the shop. I do a lot of the marketing / social media / photo stuff for Eden and working on that has sort of forced me to be more of a grown up business lady about my jewelry line. I have a clearer attitude about the importance of marketing myself and doing certain things (having seasonal collections, producing look books, advertising, soliciting wholesale accounts, participating in holiday markets and sales) that allow and encourage this business to grow.

Q: Can you tell us the story of your line? I recognize a motif of mythological figures. There also seem to be references to ancient Egypt. Where do you draw your inspiration from and how does that translate in to jewelry design?

A: The jewelry that feels most magic for me usually has a talismanic aspect, whether from an implied value by the wearer, the significance of who it came from or something else. I have so much respect for the power that jewelry can have and I always want to make things that are precious to the wearer. I try to use the finest materials I can (silver and semi-precious gemstones) but in lieu of gold I use brass, and to make it feel finer, I spend a lot of time with the metal, hammering and finishing it so it's special. A friend of mine lost a brass cuff which I'd made her in a deep river in South America. She actually dove to the bottom of the river to rescue the bracelet because as she said, she felt like she couldn't go on without it. I love that!

I'm a deeply nostalgic lady. At a museum I'll always end up getting mushy in front of some classical landscape painting while everyone else hangs out in the modern art section. I love poring over Edwardian, Georgian, Byzantine, Etruscan jewelry designs, and while I never want to be a reproduction-based jewelry maker, there is such inspiration to be found in work from the past. It is mysterious, you don't always know about the craftsman who made it, but we have a larger collective record of jewelry going back thousands of years because unlike clothing or other man-made objects, it really lasts. And I love the idea of something lasting, being passed down and loved like that.

Q: Can you also tell us about your personal story or journey? What led you to design and to Portland and what has kept you here?

A: I've always been a crafty, tactile-oriented person, plus I'm a textbook Taurus, so I love beautiful things and objects. It was probably inevitable that I started making jewelry in high school – super basic, bead store tutorial kind of things. I kept at it through college, and while my skills grew, it was still mostly assembly-work. In 2008, a friend encouraged me to apply for a metal-smithing and design apprenticeship with a local jewelry studio. One of the best decisions I've made, by far! I worked at that studio for two years, gained a whole slew of skills and built up a collection of tools and supplies. Most of all, learning metalwork gave me the very strong sense that I could do this and successfully earn a living.

When I was 16, I visited Portland for a writing workshop and the city, the landscape, even the rain enchanted me – pretty much the waves of feelings lots of people feel when they visit the Northwest for the first time. When I moved here five years later it felt very much the same. My boyfriend relocated a year before I did so there was definitely a motivation to be near him, but I also saw Portland as a city that would support me as an artist, where I could meet similarly minded people. And it has been, and I have!

Q: What are you top 5 Portland favorite pastimes?

A: In my heart, I'm an east side gal, but right now we live on the west side and I feel so lucky to be a fifteen minute walk to the Rose Garden and Washington Park. It's my personal retreat when I feel overwhelmed: rain or shine, go get a coffee and take a short walk up into a forest. I'm a pretty big homebody otherwise, leaving the house to eat dinner counts as a treat for me! I love the Living Room's Monday and Tuesday $5 movie tickets. I also love the Valrhona chocolate croissants at Ken's – if you go early in the morning sometimes you get a warm one with melty chocolate in the middle – it's the best. With summer (sort of) being here, I'm trying to go be in nature as much as possible, be it a day trip to Sauvie Island or camping on the coast!

Q: What comes next? Any sneak peeks at future plans for Ay Marieke?

A: I'm currently sketching out ideas for Fall. I think the next collection is going to go in a really opulent direction. Dark, moody colors and lots of antiqued silver and the like. In the long-long term, I'd love to get into fine jewelry. Right now I'm working at getting my jewelry into awesome shops like Backtalk and on the bodies of my buddies, ha. A number of my gal pals have gotten Ojo rings and one of my friends said she felt like they were the official girl gang piece of jewelry!