“I’m inspired by the traditional way, but I have to be economical, too—I’m not able to make everything from scratch,” she says of sourcing her materials locally whenever possible, in addition to attending university and raising two young children. Her mother, Mona Blidorf, officially joined the company earlier this year to help her manage the business.
In 2023, Sascha’s pieces caught the eye of Inuvialuit fashion model Willow Allen, who proudly embraces her Inuit heritage in her work. “Willow is using her platform to inform people about the conditions Indigenous people are living under. I love that about her, and also to see the similarities we have,” Sascha says. “My jewelry is a way of being proud of who I am.”
Nadja and Kristine aren’t the only ones looking to mentor Greenland’s next generation. Stone-cutter Jens Mikkel Fly, whose work has been covered by the Gemological Institute of America, has been working with gemstones for more than 20 years—ever since he found a Greenlandic ruby in the southern Qeqertarsuatsiatt settlement when he was 26 years old. “It started a fire inside me,” Jens Mikkel says. Today, he sources precious stones with nothing more than a hammer and chisel, and has taught evening classes to pass on the stone-cutting trade to the next generation. Many of his stones can be found in Nadja’s jewelry.
Standing inside Nadja’s workshop, Jens Mikkel motions to stones he’s cut, faceted, and polished: nephrite jade, stormy rainbow moonstone, smoky yellow prehnite and more Greenlandic rubies, which can date back three billion years. There are dazzling chunks of quartz that Jens Mikkel has cut to such a degree that their faceted angles shine like diamonds—except unlike diamonds, which can be found on every continent, some of these stones are incredibly rare.
“Tugtupite is very precious to me,” Jens Mikkel says, pointing to a case of tiny, bubblegum-pink stones. “These don’t exist like this anywhere else in the world.” Tugtupite is a rare fluorescent mineral with almost magical qualities—in differing lights, the stone can quickly change from Barbie-like rose to deep purple-red to faint, almost white salmon hue. First discovered in Greenland in the 1960s, its name shares roots with the Greenlandic word for caribou, tuttu, because the stones were found in a region where the animals seasonally give birth. The story goes that the little gems looked like droplets of caribou blood.
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