NAHANT — If you walk by Heather Goodwin’s yard you won’t see just a regular yard. You’ll see sculptures and art everywhere which are all made by Goodwin out of reclaimed wood and materials from the ocean.
Her art business, Sea Hag Studios, is based out of her studio that sits right next to her home. It is filled with all different colors of rope and fishing nets, wood, current projects, and finished pieces. The art she produces ranges from wreaths made out of rope to wooden sculptures of animals.
“It’s so great to be able to make things out of reclaimed objects because usually they’re either donated to me or they’re free or sold really cheap on Facebook Marketplace,” Goodwin said.
Now she works with a company that provides her with ropes from commercial fishing in Maine and Alaska. Sometimes people in the area will just drop materials off at her front door.
“In my own way I feel like I’m kinda helping the environment, which has always been important to me because I grew up in Nahant so the ocean and the birds and all the animals, I cherish them,” Goodwin said.
Before starting her current business Goodwin worked as a silversmith with her twin sister. They had a business called Twigs and Heather that was founded in 2000, which created and sold jewelry.
“It’s an amazing process and I learned when I was young, like early 20s from another woman caster and I just fell in love with it. And I was like, this is what I want to do,” Goodwin said.
When COVID-19 hit back in 2020, they could no longer use the studio they worked at so that meant Twigs and Heather could no longer exist. Her current space can’t hold the tanks required for silversmiths and casters.
While she still makes jewelry for longtime customers her focus shifted during the pandemic.
“The pandemic went on and on and on and then I was like, well I’m gonna make a weird wreath out of these materials I have, and people just dug on them,” Goodwin said “So after a couple years of being successful, I was like, this is kind of my new thing, you know it’s my new calling, and I miss making jewelry but like, I love this.”
Making the transition out of jewelry making was “bittersweet,” she said.
“People still recognize my work even if I’m just wearing it. Locally like we did hundreds of shows so our work was out there, we sold 1000 pieces on Etsy,” Goodwin said. “The pandemic changed everything. It was meant to be. It was hard to let it go but my sister had moved to Maine so she was kind of struggling coming back and forth to run the business with me and it was just kind of a natural progression and now this just feels so good.”
The main difference between what she used to do and the art she makes now is the flexibility aspect. Making the jewelry was “so precise” and what she does now isn’t.
“I love to just look at the wood and see something and create from there,” Goodwin said. “It’s just an idea in my head and then I make it and it’s nice to have that freedom.”
Her favorite thing to create is sculptures of creatures out of the reclaimed wood.
“I love creating really sort of strange creatures,” Goodwin said. “I call them my square headed wood nymphs.”
On Friday afternoon she was working on one of her New England Tangled Rope Wreaths. She was weaving a piece of yellow rope around a base of neutral colored rope.
“It’s like braided and twisted,” Goodwin said.
Once she’s finished with the yellow rope she grabs another color from the huge pile of ropes near her work table in the studio.
If it’s not too cold, you can find Goodwin spending her days in the studio weaving rope or building her “little weird square headed wood nymphs.”
