![]() ![]() “The city kind of shut down and (permitting) was incredibly backed up,” she recalls. The business opened on Earth Day 2021 - no small thing since its buildout coincided with the height of the pandemic. In 2019, she found an ideal retail-studio space in a new building that hadn’t yet hit the market. Woldenberg spent several years job-sharing with a former student while she developed her collections. Still, it was a leap to leave a secure teaching career to pursue her own vision. She had taught jewelry design at a high school in Auburn, WA, for more than two decades, yet she also designed wedding bands in her home studio on the weekends, starting with her own, which were inspired by the waves of a little fishing village in Mexico where she and her husband married “a million years ago.” ![]() Like many creative people, Woldenberg has forged a career path that seems both meandering (true to her shop’s name) and purposeful. And a wall running the length of the shop showcases goods ranging from pottery to candles to culinary salt, all by Seattle makers, plus a gallery for rotating art shows. A steep, space-saving staircase accesses an open-air mezzanine where Woldenberg and her part-time employee/long-time friend Mitzy Oubre work their magic at a lost wax casting station, buffing wheel and pulse-arc welder. Set in a mixed-use area of West Seattle - a geographically isolated neighborhood that feels like a small town within the big Pacific Northwest city - WEND has a townhouse-meets-treehouse vibe, with 17-foot ceilings and window displays draped in lichen and moss within sight of the jeweler’s benches.Īlthough Woldenberg makes most of her jewelry to order, walk-in customers find a smart selection of ready-to-wear pieces in this streetside gallery, along with a custom-made maple Ring Bar where people can try on sample rings or take classes in jewelry design and other arts. The result is WEND, a fine jewelry studio and retail shop where everything is inspired by Woldenberg’s affinity for the natural world. When she kept dreaming about those rings once she got home, she knew it was time to take her dreams seriously. The 100-mile Wonderland Trail proved a revelation to Woldenberg: Where her hiking partners saw rivers, glaciers and waterfalls, she saw rings waiting to be made. WENDY WOLDENBERG HADN’T done any serious hiking in years when a few friends asked whether she wanted to join a two-week backpacking trek around Mount Rainier in 2016. ![]()
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