Kai Hill

She/her/hers

I am a metalsmith/art jeweler based in Durham, North Carolina. Making Jewelry is my passion, and my way of processing the world. The way we adorn ourselves is and always has been a very detailed portrait of who we are as individuals and how we fit into the larger fabric of our society. It is how we preen, protest, and pray. It can be sentimental, the mode of the love language of gift giving, or pure guiltless vanity. Gifting is my love language, and I get butterflies every time someone finds a piece of mine that speaks to them. I make jewelry for that feeling. I believe that we grow every time we give gifts to those we love, especially ourselves, and each piece I make holds that intention within its seams. 

Kai Hill was a Junior artist in resident at Silverworks Studios in Glen Echo MD in Highschool. She graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Art from the Colorado College, where she taught jewelry making in the Arts and Crafts department as an undergraduate. She studied with Tom Muir at Arrowmont School of arts and crafts, and Arthur Hash and Elliot Clapp at Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft. She also studied stone setting under Blaine Lewis at the New Approach School for Jewelers. Her work has been shown in the Colorado Springs Fine Arts center, the Snag JAMS 2018 publication, and the Schwa National Juried exhibition in Greenville NC. Kai currently works part-time alongside Ken Weston at Hamilton Hill Jewelry as a designer/goldsmith.