Meghan Schmiedel, US

Meghan’s jewelry is inspired by this coexistence of life and death within nature, and the fluidity of beauty and decay resulting from it. She uses enamel and beads to transform the physical morbidness of death into eye-catching tokens of remembrance for the animals depicted.

I relate more to animals than I do people and resent the way we as a species think we’re above all other creatures. When I lived in NYC, it never ceased to amaze me how many New Yorkers, living in a city so full of people, unironically complained about there being too many pigeons. My neighborhood was littered with people trying to trick them into eating uncooked rice, or the bodies of ones that had been purposefully stomped on. It broke my heart. I just can’t understand people.