Tini Courtney’s jewelry is all about flow, that mental state when a person is so immersed in and enjoying what they are doing they can lose a sense of time.
You can’t plan for flow. Courtney doesn’t get there every time every time she sits down to carve her next piece. But her goal when she places her hands on the wax and cuts into it is to find that little spark of joy that makes the world fall away.
Courtney is the founder of HOWL, a Los Angeles–based fine jewelry company dedicated to creating “future artifacts”—the jewelry designer uses old techniques to make her kind of jewelry. The brand’s name is an acronym for Handle Only With Love, which feels like a romantic’s approach to this ancient art.
Yet the club-kid energy is all over Courtney’s work, from her large-scale rings to her bold color choices in Venetian glass to genderless chunky link chains. Then there are the pictures on her social media: Courtney as Earth mother breastfeeding her child, throwing parties like she did once upon a time as her full-time gig, or even riding an inflatable dinosaur to greet the New Year.
It’s all part of Courtney’s life tapestry, bedazzled with gemstones, crystals, and the necklace piles she adores—the same ones that got her the childhood nickname of Mr. T.
Courtney remembers that moniker fondly. “I always had tons of necklaces on and bracelets stacked up my wrists,” she says. “It then became a joke in my family, but, clearly, nothing has changed.”
She was a New York City baby before her parents moved the family to Miami when she was 3. Shortly afterward, her artist mom and business-minded dad split up, and Courtney and her brother lived part-time with each of them.
“Both of my parents were extremely dedicated and hardworking in the respective fields—very different from one another,” Courtney says. “My father is in the real estate world, and my mother in the art world. So I was exposed to lots of different environments growing up.”
She attended Miami Country Day high school in Miami Shores, and her first real job was throwing parties at clubs. Yes, in high school.
“Definitely not the typical first job,” Courtney admits. “It showed me the real world very quickly—for better or worse. I learned to navigate situations that were outside of my comfort zone. And I also met lots of interesting characters along the way.”
The party gig taught her the importance of creating experiences for people. Putting together a very special, memorable event is not that far away from helping someone find the right piece of jewelry, Courtney says—both can have a life-changing impact.
Around 2010, while Courtney was attending Miami International University of Art and Design—where she would earn a BFA with a focus on fashion—she started making jewelry. A friend who had all of the equipment necessary to make a simple wire-wrapped ring taught Courtney the basics. “I became enamored by it all,” she recalls.
That same year, she got an internship working for a friend at men’s jewelry brand Miansai, and Courtney says she loved that he did everything in-house.
“I was fascinated by soldering and being able to instantly make a piece of jewelry with techniques and tools I hadn’t yet been exposed to,” Courtney says. “I was also helping him do some sales with wholesale accounts—which I hated—but it helped me understand the wholesale world from the beginning.”
An obsession with starting her own brand became all-consuming, and Courtney debuted HOWL in 2014. To this day, she says, she rarely uses computers, preferring to sketch on paper. She still hand-carves in wax, letting that flow state wash over her.
“My jewelry is purely a physical manifestation of my individuality and creativity,” Courtney says. “People have a very intimate connection with jewelry, and I am honored to be able to create pieces that can be so deeply meaningful. I am extremely dedicated to my practice and constantly refining the gift that I have to create, which is what I think makes HOWL unique.”
Top: Tini Courtney went from organizing parties to interning in fashion to setting up her own jewelry company, where she says her creativity shines the most. (Photos courtesy of HOWL)
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