Karen Schmidt Humiski’s compulsion to create led her to leave a 30-year teaching career to concentrate on making jewelry. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Karen Schmidt Humiski’s compulsion to create led her to leave a 30-year teaching career to concentrate on making jewelry. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Karen Schmidt Humiski’s compulsion to create led her to leave a 30-year teaching career to concentrate on making jewelry.
As much as she enjoyed instructing her students in metal smithing and jewelry making, she could no longer ignore her yearning. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Karen Schmidt Humiski left a 30-year teaching career to concentrate on making jewelry. “I was so envious of my students working on their things,” she says.
“I figured I had only 20 to 30 years left to create and so I retired three years ago at 60.” For Schmidt Humiski making jewelry is a conscious act of joy. She’s happiest when she’s in her “chaotic” studio in Patricia Beach surrounded by her tools and paraphernalia.
With every surface covered by trays holding works in progress, bits of twisted wire and discarded parts from rings and earrings stacked around her, she forges, casts and sculpts sterling silver into fine-art jewelry. “I work in a dishevelled manner. I have stuff spread out on the floor and on the tables.
I am like a magpie. I see a lot of possibilities working like thi.