About ENB Jewelry
Award-Winning Artistic Heirlooms
ENB Jewelry features the award winning designs, silversmithing, and goldsmithing of expert jeweler Erik Nakai Buckley.
Specializing in hand-fabricated original designs, Erik and their tight-knit team at ENB Jewelry utilize traditional silversmithing and goldsmithing techniques, inspired by the desert, the master jewelers of the Southwest, and the jewelry artists of yesteryear.
Our Story
ENB Jewelry began in a hot Tucson garage in the summer of 2010.
Freshly emboldened by a few hours of art class instruction, 15-year-old Erik Nakai Buckley began hammering away, forging and forming metal, trying to learn how to work with it. Early attempts had not a straight line in sight, nor a perfect circle to be seen. Mistakes ended in mounds of silver shavings or in puddles of molten metal.
Eventually, after persistent trial and countless errors, more and more pieces made it past the workbench. They were inscribed with three shaky letters:
E N B
And ENB Jewelry was born.
Erik then spent almost a decade of work in a professional jewelry tool and supply shop. This experience, combined with a discerning mentor’s critical eye and helpful tips, honed Erik’s technical skills and continued to develop their artistic eye.
Now, sixteen years after that first lesson, Erik has won multiple awards for their artistic silver- and goldsmithing work, and is the primary artist behind ENB Jewelry, which has grown into a small but skillful creative team. Erik, their wife Abby, and their apprentice Xan work out of the ENB Jewelry studio in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, where they breathe life and the desert’s elegance into their silver and gold creations.
About our Processes
We craft our pieces by hand, manipulating metal the old-fashioned way: forging silver bars with heavy hammers, connecting components under a careful torch, and wielding hair-thin saw blades to cut gold like butter.
Our artisans utilize dozens of specialized tools to create each signature work. Beginning with small pieces of precious metal, we carefully cut, carve, form, and file every unique component. Then, under the steady flame of a torch, we permanently join them using molten metal. Finally, we meticulously finish each piece by hand, smoothing out every scuff and scratch until the surface is perfectly polished.
At ENB Jewelry, we now utilize modern casting methods as a way to accurately and economically reproduce some of our signature hand-fabricated designs. We combine these cast pieces with fabricated components and finish each piece carefully by hand.
Another recent addition to our repertoire here at ENB Jewelry is not a new technique, but rather one with roots dating back millennia: the process of die-striking.
Ancient Roman coins were minted with this process and the fundamental principles haven’t changed in thousands of years: swing a heavy hammer (or pump a hydraulic press today) to force precious metal into the shaped void, which has been carved or pressed into the steel.
Die-struck jewelry by its nature is exceptionally dense, providing more resistance to wear than other modern methods of reproduction. Many of the designs we reproduce originally date back a century or more, originating in European jewelry hotspots like Paris, London, and Munich, as well as domestic jewelry history from the likes of New York and the former center of the jewelry production world: Providence, Rhode Island. These reproductions allow us to breathe new life into these brilliant works by master craftspeople from generations ago.
Lessons and Classes
ENB Jewelry is possible because of the experts who have shared their knowledge with us. We’re committed to continuing that legacy and lineage, sharing the skills that we’ve acquired and the knowledge that we’ve gained.
We’re proud to offer group classes, private lessons, and free public demonstrations where we can pass along the knowledge that has been shared with us and share our own unique methodologies.
Some of our classes are for beginners to learn foundational skills and take home a finished necklace or ring. We also offer private classes for couples, learning and bonding by making rings for one another. Some of our classes are specifically designed to highlight technical skills like carving, polishing, and more.
We even teach students to reproduce some of ENB’s best-selling signature designs.
For an up-to-date calendar of our scheduled classes, to sign up, or to book a private lesson, please reach out to us here.
