About

Hi, I’m Olya - the hands (and slightly obsessive eye) behind oolinn.

I’ve always liked working with my hands. As a kid, I’d hand my dad tools while he fixed things around the house, small assistant, big curiosity. Maybe that’s where my love for materials and making began (and for the sound of a perfectly fitting screw).

I’ve been a photographer since 2007, shooting pretty much everything: weddings, portraits, families, musicians. When jewelry came into my life, it gave me a new direction in photography: focusing on jewelry and portraits within the jewelry world. It made me notice light, detail, and texture in a completely different way.

A few years before that, I’d started refinishing furniture and loved the process: sanding, polishing, transforming something rough into something beautiful. One day, after having a custom ring made from old pieces I owned, I thought, why can’t I do this myself? It’s really just smaller projects, different tools. So in 2019, I signed up for jewelry classes in San Francisco, and that’s how it all began.

While learning, I wanted to understand jewelry from every side, so I worked in galleries doing sales and custom projects, a kind of translator between artists and clients. I also photographed jewelry for local brands and later worked in marketing. I guess I’ve seen it all - from the bench to the window display.

My work keeps evolving. I love working with silver and gold - materials that feel honest and timeless. I’m drawn to diamonds and sapphires for their strength, because I want my jewelry to last, and to tourmalines for their quiet, shifting colors. I like simplicity with personality; pieces that feel effortless but have something to say.

oolinn comes from my own name, in Russian, Olin means “Olya’s.”
So this is, quite literally, Olya’s jewelry adventure.
And because one “O” just wasn’t enough, I added another: a little balance, a little playfulness, and somehow it just felt right.

These days, I live and work in San Francisco, a city that somehow manages to be both calm and chaotic, just the way I like it. You can usually find me walking our dog Berkeley around the Marina with my husband Oleg, while our cat Arahis (“peanut” in Russian) supervises from home, very unimpressed.