News + Events

04/03/2017

“I started making 3D objects when I was six years old,” says first-year student Nina Gregg 20 ID. “I had my own sewing machine and made bags and change purses.”

The industrious native of Florida now has her own line of 3D-printed jewelry, which she recently presented at NY NOW, a wholesale trade show where she was the youngest exhibitor. Called Never Grow Up, Gregg’s collection includes chunky necklaces, bracelets and earrings that are available on her website and in six stores across the US, Canada and London.

It all began with a chain link necklace she made from clay. “It took about five hours to make that one chain,” Gregg recalls, “and it was really heavy and fragile. I thought about casting them in resin, but it’s one whole piece, so 3D printing made more sense.”

Gregg currently works with a company in Brooklyn that laser-scans her prototypes and creates digital files she sends to a professional 3D printer, where they’re fabricated in a durable, lightweight nylon. (“Buying your own 3D printer costs as much as buying a car,” she notes.) She then does the finishing work in her Providence studio.

Gregg had been planning to attend RISD for as long as she can remember and finished her high school career at the Oxbow School in Napa, CA so she could focus on art. “I love drawing and painting,” says the newly declared Industrial Design major, “but ID is totally open in terms of materials you can use, and I find the business aspect really interesting.”

—Simone Solondz