1 Karin Collins, founder of jewelry company SpoonFed Art
Art by the spoonful
Issue #28
SpoonFed's whimsical pendants are adorned with a healing touch
By Jessica Herman
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
Karin Collins, founder of jewelry company SpoonFed Art (spoonfedart.com), first made intricate, colorful pendants out of spoons as a form of art therapy while working to overcome an eating disorder. "I had done art when I was younger," Collins says. "Once I left high school, I really shut that off. And interestingly enough, that's about the time the eating disorder started."
Collins — who adorns her spoon pendants with old jewelry from garage sales, thrift stores, and her grandmother’s jewelry box — says that when she started wearing the pendants in 2004, passersby constantly complimented her jewelry. It seemed like everyone from the guy behind the meat counter to the airport clerk was interested in her work. Coincidentally, Collins had recently garnered enough cash and moxie to resign from her unfulfilling day job as a commercial underwriter in South Carolina. The positive feedback regarding her pendants, along with encouragement from her friends, motivated her to try turning a profit from her passion; the following year, Collins moved to Los Angeles and started anew, designing and selling her jewelry full time.
"It wasn't until after I quit my day job and took the time to step back and look at what I was doing that I realized the connection [between the spoon and my eating disorder] and the potential," Collins says. "At that point I began to think about it differently, not just as a fun, somewhat funny way to cope with an eating disorder but more as an actual career choice that would allow me to both do something I love and convey a story that would hopefully be helpful to other people."
Some of Collins’s one-of-a-kind pendants ($85 each on her Web site) are thematic, inspired by people or places that she has visited, while others are purely aesthetic. Sealed with resin to keep the paraphernalia in place, the metal canvases are adorned with everything from mirrors, colored glass, and dried flowers to watch parts, guitar strings, and picks.
When you buy one of Collins’ pendants, you're not only treating yourself and supporting an independent artist, you're also contributing to a good cause. A portion of her annual proceeds goes to the National Eating Disorders Association "because that's at the very heart of why I started the business,” she says. “I know how horrible it is to live with an eating disorder … and the NEDA is a great source for information and help."
And now that her prettified utensils have had cameos in big-time advertising campaigns, including a Keds ad with The O.C. star Mischa Barton, we may start seeing more spoons around the most fashionable necks.
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