One Of A Kind Jewelry
Wild Hare Jewels is a destination jewelry store on Mount Desert Island. This shop was built as a labor of love and an obsession with all things that glitter! Focusing on one-of-a-kind, artisan-crafted pieces, we have procured an eclectic collection of fine jewelry crafted in gold, silver, or brass. Our artisans bring a distinct perspective and aesthetic, so there is a unique find for everyone at Wild Hare Jewels!
Wild Hare is the second store our family has opened in Southwest Harbor.
After successfully launching our initial store, Tom Cat Tide, we discovered personal satisfaction in our work. My mom, sister Debi, and I have found it an outlet for creativity. We all have fun creating artful wall décor from our photos of beautiful MDI, and Debi sells fantastic wooden whales that she makes out of repurposed wood.
My mother spent 30 years with her life wrapped up in caring for her many mini-horses, and with that chapter closed. She truly enjoys meeting new people each day at the store.
For me, jewelry has always been the main attraction. I love sourcing small-batch artisans for Tom Cat Tide’s inventory. The customers’ appetite for beautiful one-off pieces seems almost insatiable. And I personally enjoy the search so much. Between the stones and combinations of metals and the fact that I am regularly taken back by the beauty of singular, unique pieces that these artisans create, I decided that we could likely have a store solely focused on one-of-a-kind artisan-made jewelry – thus Wild Hare Jewels was born.
Our Artists
Nancy Hoyt
Theresa de la Guarda
Maggie Joynt
Richelle Walk
Guki Khalsa
Linhan Zhang
Barbara King
Peter Aylen
Judy Aylen
Nerissa-Marisol
Why these artisans
The initial artisans featured at Wild Hare Jewels were Peter and Judy Aylen. Nancy had been drawn to Peter’s distinctive design sense for years, having purchased dozens of pieces over the years. When approached by the Aylens to represent their work to sell the last pieces Peter made himself in Southwest Harbor (for over 40 years!), Nancy was humbled and excited at this request. At Wild Hare Jewels, we will have his work and several beaded pieces by Judy. She has a rare collection of vintage Bali beads that are almost impossible to source now. Each piece that she creates is thoughtfully laid out and unique.
One artisan, Barbara, is from Berwick, Maine. Most of her pieces incorporate handmade sterling silver chains that are spectacular. Maggie is a young artist from Iowa. She has a quirky approach of combining a rustic yet almost steampunk style with her hand-cut stones. Richelle brings a refined aesthetic to her one-of-a-kind pieces, both in gold and silver. Theresa has a collection built around bees and insects with bodies and eyes made from tourmaline and other gemstones. Nancy, from Colorado, combines the beauty she finds in nature into texture-laden creations. One of my favorites of hers is a gold running hare ring – perfect for Wild Hare Jewels! Linhan and Guki bring their fresh perspective to the collections they have created for Wild Hare Jewels –conveying exceptional design and an almost architectural approach to their work.
I chose each of these artists to pull together a selection of high-quality and unique jewelry pieces that will draw in just about anyone’s eye.
Please visit our showcase of Artisans to learn more about each.
About The Owner
Nancy Estep-Critchett grew up on MDI and graduated from MDIHS in 1983. Since then, she has returned every year to spend summer holidays and spend time with her family, who has been on the island for over 70 years! In her effort to return to “her roots” and eventually move back to the island (at least partially), she was excited to invest in a building and business in Southwest Harbor, Maine, in 2020. She opened Tom Cat Tide on Clark Point Road in Southwest Harbor with her mother, Joan Jones, and sister, Debi Estep, in May 2020. Nancy’s husband, Chris, is a naval architect and she has three kitties: Scooby, Rue, and Bea.
About Our Manager
Melissa Mathews Farley has lived in MDI for pretty much her entire life. Anyone who knows Melissa – loves Melissa. She spent over 30 years working for the Aylens at their store and assisted in manufacturing jewelry for them for decades. Melissa designs and makes jewelry as well. Wild Hare Jewels is lucky to have her at the helm and in the store daily.
As Seen In The MDIslander
Read The Article
What’s in a name?
Nancy Estep-Critchett owns a company in Sarasota, Florida, called Blue Rock Search. She launched this company almost ten years ago with two business partners. They are both her dear friends and wonderful business Partners. Sadly, one of her partners, Christopher Rios, passed away in June 2022.
“When we lost Chris, the store plans were already underway. But I still needed to settle on a name for the store,” says Nancy. “From the day Chris passed, we started having this rabbit sit outside our office windows and stare in…for hours. We had never had bunnies outside before.”
Chris’s sister Nerissa (an artist who makes jewelry for Wild Hare Jewels) said she began seeing a giant brown rabbit in her backyard on Long Island, New York. He would hop over and sit near her whenever she visited her backyard.
Melissa, another member of the Blue Rock team, said she had a rabbit sitting on her front porch for weeks after Chris passed. She said she’d never had a rabbit in her yard until then.
One evening, Nancy was with Nerissa and a small group of close friends who worked with Chris, enjoying a bottle of Chris’s favorite wine and talking about the rabbit phenomenon. One of the women present was a dear friend of Chris and former office manager, Victoria, exclaimed that she, too, had a rabbit reference! She reminded the group that the animal prints hung over her desk for years at our office; each represented a team member, and Chris was always the rabbit! She said it had to be a sign that the rabbits were our little hello from Chris.
“So, at that moment, we all agreed that he was a wild “hare” and joked that it would be an excellent name for a bar,” recounts Nancy. “And I said, ‘Wait! That is a great name for a store…a jewelry store!’ So Wild Hare Jewels was officially born. That bottle of Caymus, along with a cork signed by all present, resides inside the store above a picture of dear Christopher.”
Contributing To Southwest Harbor
What could be called a renaissance of sorts in Southwest Harbor remains high on my list of “whys” regarding opening this store. I grew up on this island and witnessed the slow evolution of Southwest from a tiny fishing village to a coveted destination for those visitors seeking a more authentic experience on MDI. It is important to me to be a small but relevant community component that keeps the town open and alive with attractive destinations for visitors while not sliding into a tourist-shop-laden enclave dedicated to selling lobster tee shirts and keychains.
Southwest Harbor has had its share of business closures and interruptions in the past few years. We are so happy to have an opportunity to participate in being part of this town’s next exciting chapter.
