Olia's Story

I started making jewelry when I was seven years old. I didn't know it was my calling, I just liked my teacher and I enjoyed putting little beads together into necklaces. This was before my family immigrated from Ukraine, Former Soviet Union to America.

I found myself bead-less in Connecticut until my aunt found some for me to play with. They were plastic and not like my teacher's glass little ones, but they did the job. I made necklaces that she brought to her work and sold for $5, so my business, or the beginning of the dream, began when I was 11.

In my family, immigrants and their children are not ones to think of Art as a career. This was expected to be my hobby.  I went to college for Computer Science, and got a great job on Wall Street as an analyst in the Government Bond Strategy Group.  I was doing what I was supposed to do, but I had an inkling that what I am 'supposed to' do is not what I 'needed to do'.  I could not see my life passing, as I stared into a computer screen at figures that I did not care about.

One day, a coworker asked me to teach him how to program. He wanted me to stay after work to do it. I politely declined.

"You don't feel passionate enough about your job to stay after work?"  He asked.

The answer was, No. I did not feel passionate, and I did not even think that feeling passionate and work could be placed into the same sentence.  I decided to be passionate.

On the side, I had begun learning Reiki.  I needed all the spiritual guidance in preparation for my leap.  I quit after two and a half years, in  2003, and started Olia Designs.  I wanted to use Reiki on my jewelry in order to keep the artistic experience meaningful for me and for the people buying my work. I did not want to become one of those material girls---crazed on the new, cool stones and obsessing over the trendiest design. I intended (and still intend) for my business to go deeper than the neck, the ears and the fingers. I am going for the soul.