Maverick Island Sister

Born +raised in Seattle, Washington as the only daughter of a world famous oceanographer and a beautiful social butterfly who gave Emily her X-ray green eyes. These two magic creatures also gave Emily and her daredevil older brother and her gentle younger brother an island full of strawberries and sandcastles they called home each summer.

It was there that Emily hid amongst the driftwood and cedar dreaming up her future feminist line of jewelry lovingly known as Sword+Fern. In an honest homage to northwest forests and mysterious passages, and sprung from the kindred arms of close cousins, aunts, uncles,friends, and ferry rides, Emily designed jewelry from a young age out of the seashells and string she collected after sunny peanut butter picnics on KVI beach.

After 4 years of cross country, swim team, running hurdles, and being a bad catholic girl at highschool in Seattle, art school administrators would have none of her shenanigans and low GPA, so Emily decided to live up to her fullest potential as an auto-didact. She busted in to the world of outsider art on her own and experimented in photography, painting, spoken word poetry (in the 90’s), playing the drums in several Northwest bands ranging from indie rock to feminist folk punk to mathy-alt rock.

Art, music, and plants became her life force, encircled by DIY luminaries and art-punk friends from all over the Northwest..her entrepreneurial spirit sparked when she returned to live on Vashon as an adult. Interested in plants and herbal medicine while attending landscape design +horticulture school in Seattle, she created her own line of organic botanical body products,called Islandula. Emily sold her lip balms, tinctures, lotions, and healing salves made by hand with primarily native plant materials in Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market.

Upon moving to Portland, Oregon where she now is settled, Emily opened her retail /studio space, Sword+Fern on the Central Eastside’s up-and-coming shopping district after a year of designing residential landscapes in the Portland area. Emily’s current jewelry collection was created in the spirit of the beaches and forests she grew up amongst, using natural and found materials such as old car parts, recycled glass, leather, bone, driftwood, vintage chain, rusty metals and shell.