Nagad believes we're all creative – we've just forgotten to notice the moments where it already shows up.

This week Nadine sits down with Nagad Hersi, jewelry maker behind Of Soleil and a practicing therapist, for a conversation on memory, cultural identity, and what it means to make something with your hands when words aren't enough.

Listen in as Nagad talks about hand-sculpting polymer clay blueberries so real they look plucked from a market box, and why it took her nearly three years to get a single collection right. She gets into growing up in the East African diaspora, and how a collection inspired by oud – the wood, the instrument, the incense – became a way of carrying her home with her. She's honest about still calling herself ”not a business person” even while running a full one, and about her dad quietly tucking her business card into his pocket like it was nothing, when it meant everything.

It's a conversation about creativity as survival and how solving a problem, weathering a hard year, or just sitting with a cup of coffee is its own kind of art. Nagad and Nadine talk about the vulnerability of releasing something deeply personal into the world, the discomfort of ”just letting it be” instead of making it something, and why healing and making things have never really been separate for either of them.

If you've ever doubted whether you're ”creative enough” to count, this one's for you.

@the_otherside_pod