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Do you have a few pieces of jewelry sitting in a safety deposit box, never worn? Perhaps they belonged to a grandmother or an ex. Maybe there’s a lovely stone, but some bad memories. Or, warm-fuzzy feelings, but a dated style.

Alizah Greenberg can get that stuff out of storage and onto your hand (and wrist and neck). The Nashville jewelry designer particularly enjoys melting down metal of unworn pieces and redesigning around a vintage gem.

“This is my favorite thing to do,” Greenberg says. “I love the sentiment of a piece, that feeling of having that same gold that your grandmother wore, and having that great feeling that she wore it, just designed differently.”

Greenberg grew up in a creative family: Her mother and sister made art regularly. But Greenberg didn’t consider herself similarly gifted. As an adult, her sister (Nashville’s Jilah Kalil) suggested she take a jewelry-making class. “I loved jewelry and loved buying it,” Greenberg says, so she signed up for a workshop with Nancie Roark through Vanderbilt University’s Sarratt Studio Arts.

“It was the first time I felt creative,” she remembers. “Unlike paintings or photography, I loved that what I made was useable, wearable. And, if you don’t like something you made, you just melt it down and do something else.”

Since then, Greenberg has continued to hone her craft, taking workshops at the Arrowmont Schools of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg and working from her home studio in Nashville. Greenberg never makes the same piece twice, although she has a clear aesthetic, modern and organic. She doesn’t make dainty, delicate pieces, instead favoring a rougher look.

She draws on the outside world for inspiration, too. If she wears one of her own designs for a month or so without getting comments on it, she knows it is time to go back to her bench and morph it into something else. Prices depend on the complexity of the work, as do turn-around times, but she’s generally available to provide pieces in a few weeks. 

While customers can order from her remotely (often through Instagram), she prefers to meet her clients. “I like meeting the person. You get a feel for how people wear things when you meet them. It is a little more personalized.”