Meet the artist

Rachel Pfeffer

Rachel Pfeffer is a mostly self-taught jeweler from a family of jewelers, and her honeycomb pendant once turned up on Beyoncé's Instagram.

Based: Takoma Park, Maryland
Since: 2007
Craft: Sterling silver, recycled brass, gold

Rachel Pfeffer makes handmade jewelry and hair pins, including an organic sterling silver Star of David pendant and a Star of David hair pin cast in solid recycled brass, both at ModernTribe. She grew up in a jewelry store as the daughter of a jeweler and the niece of two jeweler uncles.

She majored in sculpture in college, then worked at the Boston Science Museum while teaching herself to make jewelry. She calls herself mostly self-taught, with some classes and tips from her dad. She opened her Etsy shop in 2007. Her signature honeycomb design came from her boss at the museum, who suggested it because of the beehive on the roof. In 2014 Beyoncé posted a picture of one of her honeycombs on Instagram.

For years she had a studio on Washington, D.C.'s Brookland Arts Walk. Since the pandemic she has worked from the basement of her Takoma Park, Maryland, home, which she calls the Lower Level, a Real Housewives of New York joke.