About Nick Feint

My name is Nick Feint and I live in an intentional community called Tui with my partner Sybille and sons Theo and Marty. Tui is located in Golden Bay at the top of the South Island and borders the Abel Tasman National Park, with a beautiful beach across the road.

I grew up in Dunedin and completed a business degree before realising what a load of crap it was and began more creative pursuits.

After living in several places and travelling the world I have now found my place in Tui where I love the lifestyle and find jewellery making the ideal way to support my family.

I have been creating jewellery for about 15 years now and enjoy the challenge of combining creativity and small business.

I have a commitment to donate at least 5% of my profits to charity and also to offering employment to enable people to live in community.

I lead a very full life and am involved in a wide range of activities. One of my big passions is stone carving and sculpture, mainly in Pounamu(Jade). I’ve had carvings accepted into the New Zealand National Pounamu and Jade Exhibition in 2000, 2002 and 2004. In 2000 I won the Premier Award for adornment for a pendant entitled “pod” which is now in the national collection. I rarely sell my stone carvings as I want to keep that side of my work away from being driven by money.

I also enjoy playing and performing music as a singer song writer with my guitar. I’ve produced a CD of original songs entitled “learning to love this mortal coil”.

I am a Trustee in a non-profit organisation called Tracks which runs wilderness events for teenage boys focussing on rites of passage. Tracks has been running for about five years and is now well established and growing fast. I am very proud of the work we are doing there and the potential for change in society it represents.

Winter finds me out on the soccer field where I play for the Golden Bay number one team (actually there is only one) and really enjoy the challenge and fitness that comes with the game.

I have been with my partner Sybille for four years now, she originally hails from Germany but in that time she has immigrated, married and had 2 children. Our children are called Theo (who was born 3.5 months premature but is now fine) and Marty who was born in February 2007. We are finally beginning to build our dream house after most of that time spent in a bus, hooray.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have ended up in such a beautiful place and being able to earn my living in such a creative way. I am enjoying the challenges of life more and more the older I get.

Stone Arrow is moving from strength to strength and I pride myself on simple designs which are functional and durable. I use only solid Fine or Sterling Silver. I love to work with natural materials like paua and beachstones.

My motto is “you can never have too many spirals”.