My parents were born in Freetown, Sierra Leone and raised in northern Lebanon in a village called Rahbe. They came to the United States as refugees in the late 1970’s. Although I was born and raised in the United States I grew up connected with stories, languages, music, food, clothing, memories of our homeland and cultures through my family. This gave me a love and appreciation for learning, preserving and protecting cultural memory as a practice of healing in the present to consciously build loving and just futures.  Honoring my birth name Grace and its Arabic translation Naima, naima grace honors the liminal in identity, place and spaces I call home. In a postcolonial world where forgetting is a tactic of divide and conquer, I see sacred memory as a practice of honoring, healing and thriving. I hope the jewelry I create sparks this remembrance in anyone who wears them.  naima grace was birthed after my studio album release during quarantine 2020. Led to metalsmithing through music, creative inquiry and intuition, I found joy and healing through this ancient practice of transforming raw materials into wearable art. My designs are organic and constantly evolving.