Erik Merisalu works somewhere between instinct and precision. Between teeth and silver. Between the woods of Estonia and the velocity of Paris. His jewellery carries traces of all of it: bark cast into metal, imperfections left breathing beneath polished surfaces, love stories translated into rings and objects that feel less designed than unearthed.
Raised around the craft from childhood and taught through the old-school rhythm of hands, tools, patience, repetition, Merisalu approaches jewellery less as decoration and more as transformation. A tooth becomes a portrait. A mistake becomes texture. A fragile thing gets frozen into permanence.
In this conversation, we talk about chaos and control, nature and machinery, the strange intimacy of custom work, and why human imperfection still matters in a world obsessed with polish.
[DR]
Before we turn to the present, I'd like to revisit the past. You graduated with a BA in graphic design before turning fully to jewelry. How did that switch happen, and why did one win out over the other in the end?
[EM]
The switch happened mainly because I couldn’t stand working behind a computer, whereas I loved working with my hands. I think, on some level, jewellery also had a head start - it runs in my family. My mother used to take me with her to her atelier in the Old Town when I was very little, and I have strong memories of her teaching me in our backyard workshop, which was made out of two shipping containers joined together.
Jewellery has always felt more natural to me.
Does graphic design still play a role in how you approach jewelry, even quietly, in the background?
Definitely, especially in my approach to composition and presentation. While I was studying graphic design, I grew somewhat frustrated with it, but after graduating, it became enjoyable again.
Over time, I realized how useful those skills actually are in jewellery-making, and how often they quietly shape my decisions. They tend to surface almost unconsciously, influencing composition and balance, sometimes even before I’m fully aware of it. The combination of academic training in graphic design and a more traditional, old-school apprenticeship approach to jewellery-making, where I learned directly from a master, has proven to be a great combination for me.
Your mother taught you the craft from very early on. Is there a single piece of advice, or even a habit of hers, that you still hear in your head when you're at the bench?
I’m quite a chaotic worker, and I often experience sudden rushes of inspiration that make me want to speed things up, simply because I’m eager to see the piece take shape and come close to its final form.
My mother would always remind me: “Don’t rush. Stay calm and keep your hands steady.” It’s simple advice, but I still hear it in my head whenever I’m at the bench. Working with precious metals, gemstones, and very delicate details requires patience and control - rushing almost always backfires.
There seems to be a real difference between making unwearable jewelry that lives in the world of sculpture and making something a person actually wears. How does your creativity, or even your mindset, shift between the two?
The wearable jewellery I make is created for my clients, and the design is deeply curated around their character or the idea they want to capture. In those works, I am really working for and with someone else.
With my unwearable pieces, the focus shifts inward. I work with myself, trying to express my own character and bring forward my emotions and ideas more directly.
When I create wearable jewellery, I try to place myself in my client’s world and understand their way of life. With unwearable pieces, I return to my own core, after having moved through these different perspectives, almost as if I’m stepping back from the roles I’ve temporarily inhabited through my clients.
When you start a piece, do you sketch first, or do you let intuition and the metal itself lead the way?
I never learned to sketch, which is something I regret. But through years of trial and error, I’ve become very comfortable modeling and working directly in metal with my hands.
My craft relies on a deep familiarity with the materials, so I’ve spent countless hours learning how they behave – how they respond to different tools, what kinds of shapes feel right, and which surface finishes make the most sense. Over time, that hands-on process has become its own kind of language.
I rarely plan the final outcome in detail. Instead, I approach each piece step by step, allowing each stage to leave its mark and guide the next idea. In a way, the piece gradually reveals itself as I work.
The forms you play with can feel very organic and inspired from nature. What's the thought process behind working with shapes that feel like the opposite of metal's steadiness and strength?
Since I moved away from Estonia and no longer live in the middle of nature, that presence has, in a way, become even more central to my work. I find myself longing for it more than before, and it has naturally started to surface in what I make.
Here in Paris, I’ve been working with a metal caster who allows me to cast almost anything that can burn - including foraged natural materials such as wood sticks, bark, leaves, flowers, and shells. When these fragile elements are translated into metal, their forms are essentially distilled and preserved in a permanent state.
I’m drawn to that tension: something soft, temporary, and organic being fixed in a material often associated with precision, strength, and control. It creates a quiet contrast between fragility and permanence, and that balance has become an important part of my visual language.
How much does the wearer shape a piece during the process? Has a client ever pushed you somewhere you wouldn't have gone on your own, in a way that turned out well?
Until now, I’ve worked almost exclusively on custom orders, so the client and the person behind the commission shape the piece in a very significant way. I try to learn as much about them as possible. I’m fascinated by people and their stories, even when their vision is very different from my own.
As I work, I often find myself stepping into their world, trying to understand how they think and what they feel, sometimes even imagining their memories. In a way, I try to absorb aspects of their character and translate them into the piece I’m making for them. That process can be incredibly rewarding, especially when a client pushes me somewhere I might not have gone on my own. It has taught me a great deal – not only about my craft, but also about different cultures, traditions, and ways of living.
At the same time, there is a more challenging side to it. When you immerse yourself so deeply in other people’s stories, often moving from one client to another, sometimes several at once, it can become difficult to hold on to your own center. There are moments when I feel myself drifting into those other worlds, almost living through these characters instead of through my own thoughts and emotions.
You've also done collaborations in fashion. What are some of the more interesting aspects of working alongside someone else and adding to their creation, rather than building from your own starting point?
When I collaborate with someone, I try to learn as much as possible about the person I’m working with. I’m interested in understanding how their ideas take shape through their way of working, so that I can use my skills to help bring their vision into form.
At the beginning, I often approached it less as a collaboration and more as supporting someone else’s idea, as my work in that area is often connected more to finding a technical solution to hold or connect garments. I’m usually quite comfortable letting my collaborator lead the direction, because I genuinely enjoy learning about their background, their culture, and their aesthetic.
Starting from that place of understanding tends to make the process feel very natural. In the end, it allows our visions to come together in a way that feels balanced and harmonious.
The Greeks used the word techne for a kind of knowing that lives in the doing rather than the thinking. What knowledge have you gained through making that thinking alone could never teach you?
When I feel truly comfortable with a piece I’m working on, the process can become almost meditative. There are moments when I enter a kind of flow state that still surprises me in the best way. I stop overthinking and simply let my hands work, trusting the years of experience they’ve gained shaping metal with the same tools.
At that point, it almost feels as if my hands begin to guide the process themselves. They seem to think for me. I could almost close my eyes and rely purely on touch - feeling the edges, textures, and tiny imperfections in the metal as they gradually find their place. It’s a kind of knowledge that can only exist through doing.
What's a skill in your craft that took you the longest to learn? And is there one you're still actively learning?
Stone setting is a skill I’m still trying to perfect. Because gemstones come in so many different shapes and sizes, there are many ways of setting them into metal, and each requires a slightly different approach.
Some stones are also quite fragile, so there’s always the risk of damaging them during the process. It demands a great deal of patience and very delicate craftsmanship, and it’s something I continue to refine.
Similarly, the skill that has taken me the longest to learn is the patience, focus, and control that this craft requires. It’s very easy to lose yourself in the urge to rush things.
Has there ever been a piece that taught you something unexpected, maybe by going wrong, or by becoming something different than you set out to make?
This happens very often. Jewellery is a craft in which you constantly need to find inventive, often very specific solutions that suit both your style and your way of making. For me, that process has almost always come through trial and error.
I’ve come to welcome mistakes as an essential part of the work, even when they require me to rethink or repair something along the way. Those moments often lead the piece somewhere unexpected. In the end, they give it a more human quality, adding a sense of movement, uncertainty, and human transformation throughout its making.
You've spoken about being drawn to imperfections, like the abnormality of teeth set against something as polished as silver. What is it about contrasts that pulls you in, and what kind of message or feeling do you want them to carry?
Working with teeth opened up a completely new world for me in jewellery. At the beginning, I was simply fascinated by teeth themselves. I started observing them more closely in the people I spoke with. Teeth are usually hidden - you only really see them when you get close to someone and make them smile. When that happens, it can feel as if a whole new aspect of their character opens up.
When I began making jewellery with teeth, I wanted to approach them from an anatomical perspective rather than simply covering them with decorative lines or shapes. As I created pieces for more and more clients, I became familiar with a wide variety of different tooth shapes and growth patterns. I often found myself drawn to the more unusual ones - they felt like a strong trait of character, sometimes creating an interesting contrast with the rest of the face.
When I began covering the teeth with precious metals, my intention wasn’t to hide their natural form but to emphasize it. The polished metal highlights the organic shape rather than disguising it, and that contrast gradually became a central element in my work.
For me, contrast is what gives a piece its drama.
There's a particular beauty in the rawness of your work, sitting right next to the world of jewelry that is often refined. How do you think about that beauty, and where does it come from for you?
The rawness in my work is closely connected to the human aspect. My pieces are designed for very different individuals, and I try to let their character come through in the piece – their beauty, but also their imperfections.
For me, that rawness comes from wanting the piece to feel personal and alive, rather than overly polished. The goal is to create something truly unique, something that feels connected to a single person.
Coming back to your roots in Estonia, which moves at a much slower pace than where you live now: is there something from that world you've only really noticed, or come to appreciate, from a distance?
The calmness and the clear air. I miss being able to walk from my home straight into the woods, where you just hear the wind and feel that immediate sense of stillness, almost as if the world pauses for a brief moment.
Paris is famously fast. How do you protect the slowness your work needs, from a city, or even a world, that refuses to slow down?
I take a trip back to Estonia.
What are your thoughts on craft in a world that has been moving toward a kind of perfection only a machine can achieve for so long now? Where does human imperfection sit in that picture for you?
I find it interesting how craft constantly reinvents itself. When trends move toward a level of perfection that only machines can achieve, there often seems to be a counter-movement where people begin searching again for the human presence in an object, where small irregularities and imperfections become meaningful rather than something to hide.
As someone who works in a rather chaotic way, these imperfections appear quite naturally in my process. I tend to invite them in and then carefully refine them, almost trying to perfect them in a machine-like manner, while still preserving their human origin.
CAD, 3D printing, laser welding. A lot of people are folding digital tools into traditional jewelry practice. Where do you stand on that, and why?
I welcome these tools, as they often help me resolve something delicate or correct a mistake I’ve made – laser welding, in particular, has been very useful in that sense.
I learned the craft in a very classical way, so working by hand still comes most naturally to me, and I’m confident I will continue in that direction. At the same time, digital tools can bring a level of precision that feels almost machine-like. Combined with human imperfection, they form an interesting balance, and that contrast can lead to work that sits between control and spontaneity.
What are some of your favorite pieces you've worked on lately, and why those?
All of the engagement and wedding rings. With pieces like these, I get to hear the most beautiful love stories from the couples I work with. The design process is also very special, as the textures or decorative elements are often tied to shared memories – meaningful moments that are transformed into something tangible and lasting.
Engagement rings, in particular, carry a unique tension. There is always an element of secrecy and surprise, since one partner is usually involved in planning something the other has no idea about. That quiet anticipation gives the work a very special emotional weight.
Could you imagine teaching one day, the way your mother taught you? Beyond the techniques, what's a piece of knowledge you'd want a student to walk away with, something you keep close to your own heart?
The greatest gift I’ve ever received is the knowledge and techniques of jewellery-making. It has given me so much, both in and outside of my work. It has always been my dream, and it would be an honour to pass these skills on one day.
My advice is perhaps a cliché, but I believe it holds true: if you are truly passionate about something, do it with all your heart and keep going without stopping. Accept that the journey will be difficult, but also deeply rewarding. Find inspiration wherever you can, and follow your vision to its fullest extent.
CREDITSInterviewed by Diandra RebasePhotography by Anthony Peyper