There are people who dream up jewelry, seeing finished pieces like a vision in their mind. Then there are people who actually make those pieces, enduring each cut and burn as part of the process.

Lily Raven has been on both sides of the bench, so to speak. The founder of fine jewelry brand Corvo has the strategic vision for her company, a designer’s eye for the jewelry, and marketing chops earned during her college days and early career.

Pandemic-related shutdowns led Raven to actually make the jewelry she designs. In doing so, she’s gained skills, patience, and bodily scars—and evolved into the well-rounded jeweler she is today.

To follow her professional and personal evolution, you have to know a bit about Raven’s early life and the people who influenced her. She grew up in Chico, a small city in Northern California. Her mom, her primary parent, taught math and science—and shared her love for these subjects with her daughter. They traveled frequently, often visiting Raven’s aunt, artist Ann Erpino.

“The females in my life were exceptional examples of strong, capable, and supportive women—figures who are still role models and influences,” Raven says. “My family is a mix of highly academic and incredibly artistic, everyone boasting some amount of both. It was instilled in me from a young age to be passionate about what you do.”

Another key figure was Desi, the owner of the childcare center that Raven attended from when she was a baby through age 12. As a young adult, Raven worked there. Desi operated that daycare for more than 35 years, providing a village of sorts for the parents who needed her, Raven says.

“Her influence on me is as impactful as that of my mother and grandmother,” Raven says. “Her house, like my family’s, was filled with music and art and encouragement. Working with kids really instilled in me a strong work ethic—child care is not for the faint of heart. Nor the easily defeated. Nor the irresponsible. It certainly taught me patience.

“More than anything, though, getting to work alongside Desi and witnessing in my adulthood her unending capacity for love and her zest for life showed me how to imbue what you do for work with love,” Raven adds. “It set the bar high and allowed me to experience what really caring about what you do feels like.”

Raven attended junior college while in high school, and received an associate of arts degree in TV and cinema production from a Los Angeles film school in 2016. She then got her bachelor’s in psychology from Oregon State University and went into marketing, working most notably for an app called GoodHuman, Raven says.

“We had to begin marketing the product prior to it ever being released. The whole enormous strategy revolved around an app that no one could even get yet,” she says. “Garnering attention for a prelaunch made typical marketing feel like a breeze. My career leading up to the inception of my own line perfectly prepared me for developing a strategy specific to me and my tastes.”

What it didn’t prepare her or anyone for was a pandemic. Raven, who had been a jewelry fan and wearer since childhood, established her own jewelry line in late 2019. She had been working with jewelers to create her designs, but they weren’t available during the pandemic.

That’s when her garage and her own two hands came into play.

“I invested in the tools and machinery to make it myself,” Raven says. “It came with many failed ideas and lots of cuts and burns, but, occasionally, a triumph.”

Those triumphs included her Dripping Gold ring, the first piece Raven ever made entirely herself, from wax to gold.

“There was something different about touching and feeling a piece from start to finish. Holding the end product in your hands, knowing exactly what it wen through to get there because you went through it too,” Raven says. “It unlocked a whole world of jewelry for me that I didn’t even know I’d enjoy.

“I started sourcing stones differently and learning about their structure and makeup and how they could be cleaned, set, and handled,” Raven says. “I started learning about gold and alloys and how they behave once manipulated. I stopped designing pieces with just the look in mind and started designing with the thought of how it might be made.”

The women who’d influenced Raven, her own handiwork, and her personal commitment to ethical and philanthropic values contributed to making Corvo what it is today, Raven says. The company donates at least 5% of sales proceeds from certain collection to nonprofit groups that Raven supports.

“My philosophy is that jewelry becomes synonymous with who you are. Like a scent can become a signature scent or a specific cadence to your speech can remind others of you, jewelry does the same,” Raven says. “It has the potential to hold memories of who gifted it to you or where you were when you purchased it. It can remind you of the adventures and trips it’s gone on with you, or the times when you take it off for a while, only to put it back on and have it feel like home.”

Top: Lily Raven is the designer behind Corvo, a jewelry brand she founded after a career in marketing. (Photos courtesy of Corvo)

 

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