Following Her Bliss: Berçem İpekbayrak and the Soul of Creativity

“Follow your bliss.”

How many times have you heard that phrase? It’s become something of a cliché, something a guru might say to their white-robed followers. Sort of a hippy-dippy, New Age “ nugget of wisdom” that’s become a hackneyed phrase to say when a friend loses a job. But do you know where “follow your bliss” comes from and what it really means?

The phrase “follow your bliss” came from a series of interviews that Joseph Campbell did with Bill Moyers that eventually became The Power of Myth. To follow your bliss doesn’t mean doing what feels good in the moment. It isn’t shallow or hedonistic. To follow your bliss means exploring the depths of your soul to find what brings you joy and peace. Campbell said, “To find your own way is to follow your own bliss. This involves analysis, watching yourself, and seeing where the real deep bliss is — not the quick little excitement, but the real, deep, life-filling bliss.”

It’s not always easy to follow your bliss, to dig down deep to find what you’re passionate about, and upend your life to allow you to explore that passion. Just ask Berçem İpekbayrak. [Editor’s Note: Berçem’s last name was misspelled in the print version of this article. We apologize to her!]

photo credit: Bia Soul Studio

Berçem is a self-taught silversmith and the genius behind Bia Soul Studio, an online shop where she creates and sells one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art. And while more and more Fort Worthians are discovering her gorgeous silver, turquoise, and opal creations, she wasn’t always a silversmith and artist.

Berçem grew up in Istanbul, the daughter of a mechanical engineer and a sculptor/professor of fine arts. “My brother and I grew up with my father fixing stuff and my mother making things out of nothing,” Berçem said. “My mom works with giant blocks of marble, and my dad’s a mechanical genius, so he was soldering things right on the dining table.”

After school, Berçem went to work for Louis Vuitton in Istanbul. She was a visual merchandiser who rose through the ranks to become the visual coordinator for the Middle East. The job took her to Dubai, where she met her husband. But eventually, she realized that she wasn’t happy.

“I started questioning what I was doing with my life,” Berçem said. “I woke up every morning wondering what I was doing. I didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel like I was doing good for anyone. I’m a creative person, and I didn’t feel like I was using my creativity in a global luxury company where there are rules, and you have to follow certain guidelines.”

Like most people on the precipice of a life change, Berçem didn’t quit her job immediately. “I loved working for [Louis Vuitton]. I learned so much from them, but everything comes to an end, and it got to the point where I realized that this job wasn’t for me anymore.”

A lot of us dream about quitting our jobs and doing nothing for a while, but being unemployed made Berçem nervous. “I’d never been unemployed,” she said. “I’ve always been independent. I moved to Dubai by myself. And that’s another thing. In Dubai, you need a sponsor to stay in the country. Louis Vuitton had been my sponsor, and they were so generous after I quit. They continued to sponsor me until my visa expired so that I could stay in the country.”

photo credit: Bia Soul Studio

Realizing that she needed something to do after quitting her job, Berçem started buying beads and making little ornaments and things. Then, she went to an arts and crafts show near her home in Dubai. “There was a lady who was a metalsmith at the show. I approached her and started asking her questions. She showed me videos of how she designed and made her jewelry and ornaments, and I was in awe. At that minute, I knew what I wanted to do.”

Inspired, Berçem went to the hardware store and bought some scrap copper sheeting and soldering wire. She then bought a little kitchen butane torch for caramelizing sugar on crème brulee. “So there I was with all these plumbing things, and I went into the yard and started experimenting with soldering and flame painting on the copper sheeting.”

Once Berçem started experimenting, there was no looking back. Once a passion takes hold of your soul, it’s like a tidal wave. It washes over you until there’s no room for anything else. Berçem started making jewelry.

By this point, Berçem was married to an ex-pat American. He had lived in Dubai for a long time and wanted to return to the States, so they packed up and moved to Virginia. From Virginia, the couple moved to North Carolina for a time before settling in North Texas. All the while, Berçem was experimenting with metalsmithing and learning everything she could about designing and creating jewelry.

“When we moved to North Carolina, I opened an Etsy shop,” Berçem said. “I was working mostly with copper and brass and things I could buy at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. I turned our garage into a little studio, and I kept experimenting with how to manipulate metal and make different textures.”

Berçem and her husband moved to North Texas in 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic. She had left a community of friends and supporters in North Carolina and didn’t know anyone here. She continued to make jewelry, but she relied on her husband and her pets for emotional support, especially her German Shepherd, Bia. Bia passed away in 2021.

“Bia was my rock,” Berçem said. “After her passing, I wanted to do something for her, to honor her. Her passing challenged me to move forward. That’s why I named my business after her. My grief pushed me to be better and bigger.”

She continued, “I started following a lot of metalsmiths on Instagram. A lot of them have YouTube channels, and I started learning from them. Then I reached out to some and started having conversations with them.”

Metalsmithing is a niche craft. Not many people do it, so the community of metalsmiths is supportive of each other. “Community over competition” is how Berçem describes it. “There’s a group called the Metalsmith Society, and it’s really beautiful. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or a professional; everyone shares their sources and their techniques.”

Once the pandemic restrictions eased, Berçem started taking her jewelry to local markets and was amazed at how enthusiastic Fort Worthians were about her art. She works now mainly in silver, turquoise, and opal, and let’s face it, we Texans love silver and turquoise.

“Fort Worth is so appreciative of art and craftsmanship. And it doesn’t matter where you come from; Fort Worth embraces diversity and creativity. I’ve done markets in places like Dallas and Richardson and Frisco, but Fort Worth has a special place in my heart because you make me feel so loved.”

photo credit: Bia Soul Studio

And Fort Worthians do love Berçem and her jewelry. Megan Henderson, Director of Events and Communications, told Berçem that whenever she sees someone wearing an incredible piece of jewelry, she assumes it’s from Bia Soul Studio. Most of the time, she’s right.

Berçem smiled. “When you see people wearing your creations, there’s nothing better. It lets you know that you’re on the right track. As creatives, we have constant self-doubt, constant self-criticism. You question your ability, and you want to quit all the time, but when you see [someone wearing your art], it motivates you to make more.”

Berçem is a bright and bubbly person who has no trouble talking passionately about her art, so it was a little surprising when she admitted to self-doubt.

“My brother and I grew up in a very modern family,” Berçem said. “My parents met when they were both studying in Germany, and they are both very modern and open-minded people, but we still grew up to be very respectful, to be very discrete. You don’t show off. So I’m a little introverted, but with a small business, I have to show off, and that gives me anxiety.”

There’s pressure in owning a small business. “I have a small business, and I buy from small businesses,” Berçem said. “All my stones come from lapidary artists. My packaging comes from a family-owned business. My jewelry pouches are hand-sewn by another family. It’s all a chain of small businesses, and we rely on each other. So I have to push and promote my jewelry.”

She grinned, “My business helps me to come out of my shell. I can’t be scared.”

While the business and promotion side of her business might make her anxious, the creative side of Bia Soul Studio makes Berçem glow with happiness. “I always have notebooks around me because my brain is always creating. If I don’t write things down, I’ll lose it.”

She continued, “I usually design to music. If I hear something in a song, I’ll just keep listening to that song as I get the design out of my head. Sometimes I see things in my dreams, too.”

“I buy sheet metal and wire and stones, and everything I create comes out of those raw materials. They’re so full of potential.”

photo credit: Bia Soul Studio

Berçem carefully designs each piece, taking time to choose which stones work together and how they fit together. “I want a coherence and balance between the stones. The piece of jewelry should feel good, so I take my time. I have trays of stones sorted, and it can take hours to put the right ones together. It’s so meditative; I have my music, and I’m in the zone when I’m putting stones together.”

When asked what she looks for in a stone, Berçem shrugged. “Sometimes I see a stone and know exactly what I’m going to do with it. But most of the time, I keep the stone until the design comes to me. Some stones I’ve had for years.”

“I try to let things flow. I don’t want to be rigid when I’m working. There was one time I was making a necklace. I had put the stones together in a pattern, but then my hand hit the tray, and the stones moved into a new shape. I realized that I liked that pattern a lot better. If a piece goes in a different direction from where it started, I just follow where it’s going.”

For now, Bia Soul Studio is solely an online retailer, but Berçem had dreams of a storefront with a workshop and studio space where she can teach metalsmithing.

“It’s a childhood dream,” Berçem said. “When I was little and played with my dolls, I always wanted to own a shop and be in a community. My play store was a place for people to come and gather, and that’s still my dream – to have a creative place for people to express themselves and learn and explore. Right now, I share reels on Instagram about my process – from the design to choosing the stones to finishing, but I want to be able to do that in person.”

It’s a long way from Istanbul and luxury retail to North Texas and silversmithing. It takes courage to quit a high-paying job that doesn’t make you happy, but that’s precisely what Berçem did. She found, in the words of Joseph Campbell, her “real, deep, life-filling bliss.” And now she wants to share it with others.

“Creativity is limitless, an endless universe, and you get inspired by other people. Everybody had their own way of expressing themselves, their own creativity. They just need a spark to set it off.”

photo credit: Omorfia Imagery