QUESTION:  What inspired you to start The Finest Stack? What is the story behind the name, The Finest Stack?  

Annika:  When I was six, I was diagnosed with a birth defect and spent a year in the hospital having surgery and learning how to walk again. It was pretty traumatic, but I had my crayons, my fashion plates, and my imagination. Creating things brought me comfort. And that fascination with color, art, and design has never left me.

That experience also made me determined to become a physical therapist. I think, at my core, I've always felt that my purpose is to help people feel better, bring people together, to heal, and to just... love.

But art was always there, too. While working as a therapist, I worked in art galleries and clothing boutiques, designed clothes (sometimes using cochineal bugs as dyes!), and eventually began making my own jewelry. I have always turned to art of some form when feelings became strong or heavy.  

Then, in 2016, my Dad died, and I went into an absolute tailspin.

Those were some very dark days. I remember asking myself over and over: What am I even doing here? Why are we all here? What even IS the purpose?

I found myself spending a lot of time outside, staring at the clouds.

I know that sounds simple, but there was something about looking up into that enormous sky that was soothing. Maybe it was just feeling so small, but in the best possible way. The clouds were constantly shifting, breaking apart, coming back together, changing color. Sometimes dark and imposing, sometimes soft and peaceful. Nothing stayed the same.  I found that comforting.

I started thinking about how much we're like nature and how we are shaped by forces we cannot control. We change, we struggle, we fall apart, we adapt, we laugh, but we keep going.  And then I started paying close attention and realized that really, none of us has it all figured out.

We are these complicated, imperfect, fascinating, story-filled humans, just trying to make our way through life. Someone would say, “How are you, Annika?”  I would answer, “I’m fine.”  Knowing that I was about as far from FINE as possible.  My friend Meg would say, “You know how I feel about that word.”  I said, “That word has to be in the name of whatever I do from now on!!!”

F*cked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotionally unavailable.

Ha! But… aren't we, though?

And that's where the word FINE came from. A double entendre. Because we can be all of those things and still be extraordinary. Still be beautiful. Still be worthy of celebrating.

I wanted to create something beautiful out of what had been such a painful time and acknowledge all of it–the darkness, the chaos, the joy, the resilience, the light.

And I kept coming back to the Earth itself.  Think about natural diamonds and gemstones for a second. These tiny, extraordinary treasures are formed through immense natural forces, using trace elements and minerals deep inside the earth, over unimaginable periods of time. Pressure, heat, transformation. And somehow, out of all of those crazy conditions that we cannot even fathom comes this astonishing natural beauty.

I find that fascinating.

Isn't there something so human about that? We are shaped by our experiences, too. The difficult ones, the wonderful ones, and everything in between. None of us is perfect. None of our stories is quite like anyone else's. And that's what makes us interesting. That's what makes us us.

So I created the first cloud.  And I added it to my stack.

The Finest Stack.

A little play on words, but also a reflection of what I believe: that all of the pieces of our lives, even the messy and imperfect ones, are part of something beautiful and deserve to be acknowledged and honored.  

I don't think jewelry has to mark some grand occasion. Sometimes simply being here, having made it through another day, is worth celebrating. Or maybe it's a memory, a person you love, something you've overcome, or just a color or a stone (tourmaline!) that makes your heart skip a beat for reasons you can't explain.

So this jewelry is a tribute to all of us. To our stories, our imperfections, our resilience, and our capacity to keep finding beauty in this strange, magnificent, sometimes heartbreaking world.

Through our darkness, we keep moving forward, changing, and holding onto our light. Even when we forget it's there, it's there.

And so we find it, stack it, and let it shine.

I’m coming at jewelry from a different direction– from the inside out:  your light, made visible.