Art is more than beauty. It is defiance, storytelling, and truth. It is the quiet rebellion of making something that wasn’t there before. As a designer, I have always been drawn to women who create without fear—artists who challenge norms, rewrite the rules, and refuse to be defined by anything other than their own vision.

On International Women’s Day, I want to honor three women who have shaped me, not just as a designer, but as a person. Women whose work pulses through my own creative process, who remind me that art is about more than aesthetics—it’s about identity, strength, and the courage to tell your own story.

Frida Kahlo was a woman who painted her pain, her strength, and her truth. She turned suffering into art, rejecting perfection in favor of raw, unfiltered honesty. Through her self-portraits, she laid bare her emotions, her body, her struggles—and in doing so, she became one of the most powerful artistic voices of the 20th century.

Kahlo’s influence on MAIDEN / METAL is profound. She reminds me that art should never seek approval. That beauty is found in the flaws, the scars, the stories etched into our very being. That strength is not about having no pain, but about creating something meaningful from it.

Diane Arbus had a way of looking at the world that changed how we see it. Her photography was a study of the unconventional—capturing those who lived outside the lines, who weren’t meant to be seen but demanded to be noticed. Her portraits of outsiders, misfits, and nonconformists weren’t exploitative; they were empathetic. They celebrated difference, challenging the narrow definition of beauty society had tried to impose.

Her work has deeply influenced the way I approach design. Jewelry, like photography, is about storytelling. It’s about embracing individuality, creating something that feels personal, raw, and a little unexpected. MAIDEN / METAL is not about blending in—it’s about standing out, about wearing something that feels like a statement, a mark of identity.

Sally Mann’s work captures a kind of haunting beauty—the kind that lingers, unsettles, and refuses to be tamed. Her photography finds poetry in imperfection, in decay, in the passing of time. She doesn’t seek to polish or refine; she embraces what is real, fleeting, and unfiltered.

Her approach has taught me to see beauty where others may not. In my designs, I embrace the rawness of metal, the organic textures, the bold, architectural forms that don’t ask for permission to exist. Mann’s work is a reminder that perfection is overrated. That the most powerful art—and the most powerful jewelry—feels alive, untamed, and unapologetic.

The influence of these artists runs deep in MAIDEN / METAL, in the way I create, in the way I design pieces that aren’t just meant to be worn, but felt. Jewelry should be more than an accessory—it should be a symbol of identity, of power, of defiance.

This brand is for the artists, the visionaries, the rule-breakers. The ones who refuse to be put into a box. The ones who embrace their strength, their individuality, and their own unique story.

This International Women’s Day, I celebrate them. I celebrate you.

Wear your strength. Own your power.