By Sharon Berman
4.8
3636 ratings
The podcast currently has 319 episodes available.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Sharon Berman
Sharon Berman is managing principal of Berbay Marketing & Public Relations, specializing in working with professionals to create the visibility and credibility that fuel revenue growth. After 20 years of positioning lawyers and other trusted advisors as experts, Sharon launched Arts and Jewelry and expanded her scope to include professionals in the decorative arts and jewelry fields.
A passionate jewelry collector, Sharon is studying for her GIA Graduate Gemology diploma. She is on the Board of Art Jewelry Forum, and is a member of the Association for the Study of Jewelry & Related Arts, American Society of Jewelry Historians, Society of Jewellery Historians and Society of North American Goldsmiths.
Sharon writes and speaks frequently about business development and marketing for professionals. She has been a speaker at the Antique & Estate Jewelry Conference (“Jewelry Camp”).
Sharon earned her undergraduate degree at UCLA and her MBA at USC.
Additional Links to Articles About Sharon and Her Life:
For donations in lieu of flowers, please follow the next link to Simms Mann program at UCLA, which was important to Sharon and Jonathan:
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Transcript:
Welcome to the Jewelry Journey, exploring the hidden world of art around you. Because every piece of art has a story, and jewelry is no exception.
Sharon: Hello, everyone! Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast.
Jonathan: In fact, it's not going to be Sharon today. I'm Jonathan Kramer, known to some as Mr. Sharon Berman, and I'll open this podcast with some news, not unexpected in some quarters. Sharon passed away in August 2024 from the long-term effects of cancer. Sharon lived a long and productive life. Even after her cancer diagnosis some nine years ago and her prognosis that she would only live for five years, she soldiered through, did an amazing job of prolonging her life, and in some important ways, did that through this Jewelry Journey Podcast.
In the podcast you're about to hear, Sharon's jewelry journey is going to be the subject. My youngest daughter, Aleah Kramer, is interviewing Sharon. This interview took place a couple of months before Sharon's passing. It's going to be the same thing you've heard before about a person's jewelry journey, but it's going to be very personal to Sharon.
Sharon's jewelry journey with me began 32 plus years ago when we were dating each other, and it was very clear that we were going to get married. Sharon made it very clear that I should not bother to buy her an engagement ring and that she would take care of that herself. That was very typical of the Sharon I would come to know and love and typical of her approach to jewelry. She didn't want to leave it to me to pick out her engagement ring and just said to me, “Don't worry about that.”
She ended up ordering some diamonds to evaluate from Empire State Jewelers in the Empire State Building. I remember that. She picked out the stone she liked, and she picked out the setting that she wanted it to be and had it constructed. That should have told me three decades ago that I was with a very special woman who knew her taste in jewelry and wasn't going to be sidetracked in that. That was actually the beginning of my jewelry journey with Sharon.
Her jewelry journey has been one of passion and pleasure, and she's become quite the well-known person, even before she began this series of podcasts. I'm amazingly proud of what she's accomplished in terms of her own jewelry journey, and I have to say she's had an exquisite palate in the selecting and enjoyment of jewelry. She didn't just buy jewelry to collect it. She wore her jewelry all the time. It was a source of pleasure, and it made her feel comfortable. Her jewelry was a source of comfort for her.
She would find these incredible makers and go out and interview them and purchase their goods. She really supported emerging artists. That was one of the gateways to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. She wanted to share that enthusiasm for the up-and-coming makers with people that she talked with all the time. The more she talked to people, the more people said, “You know what? You should do a podcast and share this.” That's how the Jewelry Journey Podcast really started, some 225-ish episodes ago.
We're going to leave the podcast up for people to listen to and hopefully enjoy and learn from. It will be a good and honorable tribute to Sharon's jewelry journey to do that.
With that, I'm going to let Aleah do the magic of editing here. She's been the editor of these podcasts and has done an amazing job pulling all of this together. I am deeply grateful for her participation in the podcast and, more importantly, the fact that she and Sharon were really partners in this jewelry journey. I am indebted to Sharon for really opening Aleah's eyes to the jewelry journey. Aleah has become an exquisite collector and has gotten as much joy out of collecting as Sharon. With that, we’ll go to the podcast that Sharon talks about her jewelry journey, and then I'll come back at the end to close this out.
Sharon: Welcome to the Jewelry Journey. I'm your host, Sharon Berman, and today we have a bit of a different episode. I have a few announcements to make, and then I'm going to share some of my jewelry journey. To help me with that, I'm going to introduce Aleah Kramer. First, thank you all for listening. If this is your first time, a big welcome. If you are familiar with this podcast, welcome back.
I'm sorry to report that we suddenly lost several gems in the jewelry world. One of them is Cookie Lewis, who I can't say had a defined role, but she was my best friend. I've known her for 30 years and have been very friendly for the past 20 years, and she really got me into jewelry.
Cookie was a very nice person, but I think anybody who knew her for any length of time would say she's a tough cookie. She had definite opinions that were difficult to change. I wouldn't always listen, but I knew she knew her stuff. I saw salespeople who would look at her when she contradicted them. They would look at her like, “Lady, you don't know what you're talking about,” but they'd go back and ask, and sure enough, she was right. Then they would take something out of one case and put it in another. She knew her stones and could always identify the flaws in stones much better than I could, despite all the study I've done. Cookie Lewis will be missed.
The next gem that we lost is Robert Allen. Robert did our transcriptions. Robert did transcriptions for me for eight to 10 years, but for the Jewelry Journey since its inception. He had great analytical skills, as did Cookie, but they were both creative in their different ways. In my experience, I've found that people who are good at analysis aren't really the best people for creative endeavors. I thought they both could look outside of their analytical areas and look at the creative aspects of their profession.
For instance, every year about Christmas time, Robert Allen would call me with a different idea. "Hey Sharon, I was thinking, what do you think of this?" Then he'd go into it. I can't tell you that I always accepted them or implemented them, but I thought it was really nice that he thought about it. I'll miss that.
Our new co-host has been involved in the podcast for a long time but behind the scenes. Now she's coming out of the shadows. Her name is Aleah Kramer, and she's been a producer, an editor, a transcriber, and a pinch hitter. She's also my stepdaughter. She's also joined me on several voyages that I've gone on for the Jewelry Journey, and I would say that is really her métier. She knows it very well, art jewelry.
Aleah: Thank you so much, Sharon. That was such a lovely introduction. Hi, everybody. My name is Aleah Kramer, and I am so excited that we're going to share some of your jewelry journey today.
Sharon, you always ask your guests a few important questions, and I've always wondered what your answers to these questions are. I wanted to ask you, how did you first become interested in jewelry?
Sharon: I think I first became interested in jewelry because I liked jewelry, but really it was Cookie Lewis who drew me into jewelry. She introduced me to estate jewelry, and from there I was off and running.
Aleah: What are some of your favorite types of jewelry?
Sharon: I like contemporary jewelry, some art jewelry. I used to like it a lot more. And estate jewelry of any kind. By estate jewelry, I mean used jewelry. That's how most people would define it.
Aleah: I often hear you ask your guests about collecting and what defines a collector. What do you define as a collector?
Sharon: That's a hard-to-answer question. I've been asked that before. I still don't have a good answer. What is a collector? A collector can be somebody who has three or more of the same kind of piece, three or more pieces by the same named jeweler or the same named maker. I really don't have a definition, and here I'm asking everybody who comes on what they define as a collector.
Somebody told me they thought they were a really good shepherd of jewelry, and I thought that was interesting. I'm not sure that really fits the bill, but it was interesting to hear. What do you define as a collector, Aleah?
Aleah: Oh, I'm too early in the biz to have any definitions. I'm interested in exploring all of the avenues and creating some definitions, but I am definitely not defining anything yet.
Sharon: Okay, I think that's very smart.
Aleah: Do you have a favorite piece of jewelry? I know you have a beautiful and extensive collection. Do you have a favorite piece of jewelry or a favorite artist?
Sharon: Well, I have maybe one or two pieces by named artists, Cartier, that sort of thing. But I don't collect Cartier. The name people, I might have one piece, not because I was collecting or gathering them together. Not, “Oh, I have a piece by A, now I want a piece by B or C.” They just came to me, or I liked them.
I don't have a favorite piece, except I would say there is a person in France who does beautiful, large rings. I happen to like statement jewelry. It has to be large, and it has to make a statement. It has to be a statement piece. Her name is Sylvie Corbelin, and she's represented here by Lionel Geneste. We just did a podcast with him. I'm probably butchering his name, but he represents her. She is a very talented and creative person.
Aleah: She makes some really exquisite jewelry with high-end materials, such beautiful gold and such beautiful gemstones. They end up looking like paintings and works of art that you can wear on your finger or on your neck or as earrings.
Sharon: It's a good way to describe it. Some of it is just very pretty! Pretty and unusual.
Aleah: How long have you been a part of Art Jewelry Forum?
Sharon: For about 10 years or more, but I was involved for maybe a couple of years. I'm not currently involved. I just look at what they have and the people they have on.
Aleah: How did you get involved? How did you find them?
Sharon: I found them because I was looking for ways to travel and learn about jewelry. When I found them, I didn't even know what art jewelry was, and I wasn't that interested. But when I saw that they were traveling, I was really interested. That's how I got involved.
Aleah: What specifically about traveling to see jewelry interested you?
Sharon: Because I like to travel and because there are very few places you can learn about jewelry by traveling. You know yourself there are only a few places. I could name them on one hand. I don't even need one hand.
Aleah: How do you feel about the jewelry market in L.A.?
Sharon: The jewelry market in L.A. is one-sided, and that's why I like to travel. Art jewelry really started out in Sweden, in Scandinavian countries, in the Netherlands. Here you don't see art jewelry. Here, I think it's very blingy, shiny. It has to catch your attention, and that makes sense. But it's not the kind I like.
Aleah: Let's talk about the trips. About how many trips have you been on?
Sharon: About seven or eight.
Aleah: Do you remember the first trip that you took?
Sharon: Well, you just reminded me. Abroad or with them?
Aleah: Let’s start with abroad trips, and then even national trips that you’ve done in America with Art Jewelry Forum.
Sharon: Well, I think some of the most memorable trips—we went to some places I never thought we would be, like Estonia. The Netherlands is de rigueur, but Estonia, I was really surprised I was ever there. Where else did we go?
Aleah: Do you remember the trips to Germany for Schmuck?
Sharon: That's right. We took several trips to Germany because Schmuck is there. That's the name of it. Schmuck means jewelry in German, and it's the largest market for jewelry. Art jewelry is displayed there. People go one year, they skip a year, then they go another year, so that's where we went.
I came across a sweater. It was an art jeweler sweater, but it was a sweater I got there. I thought, “Gee, I forgot I had this.” That was a lot of fun. That's what I found with Art Jewelry Forum. If you travel a lot, you've seen things they’re showing.
Aleah: What inspired you to start the Jewelry Journey Podcast in 2019?
Sharon: I'd been thinking about it for a long time, and I thought, “What better time than the present?” I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I thought, “Just start it and see where it takes you.”
Aleah: What were some of the key goals or motivations when you launched the podcast?
Sharon: I'm thinking about that. Just to study jewelry in more depth. That was one of my key goals. I like talking and thinking about jewelry. That was another key goal. It gave me an excuse to talk to a lot of the jewelers I knew who wouldn’t talk to me. They were friendly, but they wouldn't necessarily talk to me unless I was asking them questions.
Aleah: That's a really interesting answer. I hadn't thought about that as well. Sometimes when you're just talking to them, they're not that open. But when you get them into a podcast setting, they really do open up. You have really asked some interesting questions of people. Thank you for that answer. I’m really interested in that.
In the 220 plus episodes that you've done, what have been some of the most memorable or impactful stories that you've covered?
Sharon: I don't know if I have any that are so impactful, except one came from a jeweler. He said that the most important thing you have to remember when you're selling jewelry online is what the return policy is. I thought, “Well, he's really right.” I've never forgotten that. That's probably the only thing I haven't forgotten.
Aleah: That’s a very important thing not to forget!
Sharon: Yeah, but I think he's right. It was a good point.
Aleah: What are some of the most important trends or developments you've observed in the jewelry industry over the past four years?
Sharon: I would say, and I think a lot of people would agree with me, is probably the use of lab-grown diamonds becoming more accepted. They are a lot more accepted. Today I would look at them a second time in my jewelry. If somebody showed me a lab-grown diamond several years ago, I wasn't interested, but they've become a lot more acceptable in the past few years.
Aleah: Which episodes or topics have resonated the most with you and with your listeners? I think you've really been impacted by cataloging.
Sharon: Aleah, I think that’s a very good point in that I've spent the past—what I thought was going to be three weeks—six months working with somebody to catalog my jewelry. Aleah and I tried various means. We tried Excel, and we tried all these different ways that were supposed to help you catalog your jewelry. I think we settled on one called Collector Systems. I resisted because that has a subscription of about $1,000 a year, but it's the best one. The best one I could find, at least.
I do have to give credit to Mara, who helped me do it. She also helped Aleah do it. When she asked how long I thought it would take, I really thought it was going to take three weeks, but it took forever. I had more than I thought, and we try and keep it up to date.
Aleah: It's absolutely been a fun challenge.
Sharon: When I'm going to sleep at night, I think, “Oh, I have to tell Mara that I sold that, or I gave it away or I acquired this, so we keep it up to date.” I'm usually behind the ball when it comes to that.
Aleah: What have been some of the biggest challenges that you've faced in producing a weekly podcast about jewelry?
Sharon: I haven't been able to think that far ahead. We've talked about starting a newsletter. I've wanted to be a few weeks ahead so I could announce things in the newsletter, but I've never been able to get more than a couple weeks ahead of what's coming up to let the listener know and to let the person that I'm interviewing know. By the time I contact them and they get back to me, which sometimes could be several weeks and occasionally it's been several months, it takes a lot longer. The thing that takes the most time on any podcast is the amount of time it takes. It's always lovely to get answers right away, but it doesn't happen that often.
Aleah: Which guests or interviews stand out as being particularly insightful and eye-opening for you?
Sharon: I have to think about that. I partially answered that question. It was Jeff Russak at Lawrence Jeffrey Estate Jewelers who told me what I needed to know about selling jewelry online. Besides that, Robert Lee Morris was a very interesting episode. There are a lot of episodes where I was told the person didn't have a lot to say, so they said they would stay within the half hour or 20 minutes or whatever, and an hour in I'd have to stop them because they were still going, and I hadn't said anything. They were very interesting, nonetheless.
Aleah: How do you go about finding and selecting the guests you feature on your show?
Sharon: Sometimes they come directly to me, which in the beginning really surprised me. Now they regularly come to me. If I read a name in the jewelry trades or in the newspaper, I'll circle it and pursue them. It's as simple as that. I may not know anything about them except that they're in the jewelry business, and I'll work on finding out more about them. I would say those are the two main ways. I think it's two main ways, they come to me, or I go after them.
Aleah: In your opinion, what are the most exciting or innovative areas of art and contemporary jewelry?
Sharon: I've recently learned that the Art Deco period was followed on the heels of Retro jewelry, and I like both periods. I like some art jewelry, but not all. There was a time when I liked all art jewelry, but I found that I really don't. I'm very particular about art jewelry. Contemporary jewelry is contemporary jewelry. If it's not one of those categories, I think it's contemporary jewelry.
Aleah: I think that answered part of my next question, because I was going to ask how has the podcast helped expand your knowledge and appreciation of jewelry? Obviously, there are so many things you learn by just talking to so many people.
Sharon: There's a lot I've learned and a lot you do learn. There's so much to learn.
Aleah: What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own specialty podcast?
Sharon: This isn't the first specialty podcast I've been involved in, but on any specialty podcast, any podcast in general, you have to be prepared, and you have to know that it takes time. I would say the thing that takes the most time is finding people and following up with them, booking the interview or whatever it is. It takes a lot of time. People don't think about that, and they don't work that into their story.
Aleah: What have been some of the most rewarding aspects of hosting a long-running jewelry podcast?
Sharon: That it's been long running. Long running is very exciting and rewarding. When people come to me and say, “I would really like to be on the Jewelry Journey,” or “I found the Jewelry Journey online,” I'm excited and rewarded by that.
Aleah: I always think it's fun when people recognize you, too. When we're out at shows, they're like, “Wait, you're Sharon. Don't you host that jewelry podcast?” And I'm always like, “Yes, she does.”
Sharon: Yes, once in a while they recognize me. I don't show my face on anything, but somehow people have recognized me. You play a big part because you've taped some. We've done some live, and I hope to do more in the future.
Aleah: Yeah, I think you're out there more than you think you are.
Sharon: It's probably true. Other things I'm proud of are the three times I've been in the press. The first time was in the Financial Times. Then two or three weeks later, people called me and said, “I saw you in the New York Times.” I was very surprised because one thing led to another, as it usually does in public relations. It turned out I was in the Financial Times, and I was in the New York Times. In November of 2023, the New York Times had a section called "Jewelry Podcasts Pick Up Some Glitter,” and it mentioned me and other podcasts. I am so honored to be included among them. They list six, usually.
The third time, the equivalent of GIA in the UK is called Gems&Jewellery, and I was in the autumn 2023 issue. It comes out four times a year, I think, or no more than six times a year. I was very impressed. They were doing a special on jewelry podcasts, and I was honored and excited to be included with them. I questioned, “Why are they asking me?” But they wrote their little blurb, and it was very nice. It was very exciting to have that memory, to cut it out, and to put it on my Instagram, which is @artsandjewelry, by the way. I would say those are the things that are exciting to me.
Aleah: How do you maintain creativity and come up with new angles to explore in each episode?
Sharon: Well, how do you maintain creativity is probably one of the key questions I have in my mind that I ask the jewelers. How does somebody who's been doing it for 20 years keep fresh and creative? I don't know, and I haven't found the formula for that. As I'm talking to somebody, a question usually comes up that I wouldn't have thought of beforehand, but as they're talking it prods something.
Aleah: The best way is really to put yourself out there and listen to their story. You just hear it, and you want to know more. It’s very organic for you.
Sharon: Exactly, exactly. Organic is a very good word for it.
Aleah: What role has social media played in growing and engaging your podcast audience?
Sharon: Social media plays a key role. I don't know how I would distribute it or how people would find me if it weren't for social media. I have to remember that most of the people I talk with are on the younger side and they know social media, but a lot of people I talk to are exactly like me. “Can you tell me how to find the email again?” I have to remember that I play to both audiences.
Aleah: Have you encountered any unique challenges in covering the jewelry industry, which is a very visual industry, through an audio format?
Sharon: I haven't encountered any issues because this is a visual medium. What I've encountered is when a jeweler doesn't want to talk about their process. I've encountered that several times. It feels like they're giving away their secret sauce. They're afraid of it.
Aleah: They're almost afraid to say too much. They think someone's going to replicate it. Sometimes when I'm listening, I'm like, “No, you have your own perspective. It's okay, tell us!”
Sharon: That's true. If there’s a unique challenge, that would be it, visual versus audio. I think the audio holds it up. I've broached that subject when I've asked people, “Do you think I should make the podcast visual also?” Usually I get a nay, that people like to listen to the podcast. They're like me. You listen to a podcast when you run or when you're doing something else.
Aleah: You've expanded by adding photos on your website and adding photos on social media. Even though it's an audio-only format for your podcast, if you want to find more, it's always beautiful that you bring the photos to the website so that listeners can see more.
Sharon: Aleah, you have said it better than I could have.
Aleah: Which guests have provided you the most surprising or unexpected insights?
Sharon: I don't know why, but there’s a name that sticks in my mind a lot, probably because he's unique. I was thinking about it this morning. His name is Isaac Levy. It was Yvel jewelry, and Yvel is Levy backwards. I was surprised that he even said he would be on a podcast, because he really is an important guy. I remember him was saying, “Sure, why not?” and the way he said it was like, gosh, I wish everybody was that easy to ask if they can be on my podcast. He was such a nice guy but such an important guy, and he didn't start that way. His wife started it, and then he entered and worked with her.
Aleah: I remember that too. She was the one who knew how to string pearls, and she taught him. They grew the brand together, the both of them.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in the early days of launching the podcast?
Sharon: Now I'm a lot more comfortable. I do more prep than I used to, but I'm a lot more comfortable doing the podcast. When I listen and remember how it was in the beginning, I was very measured in the way I delivered. I read from a script. I don't have to do that anymore. I would just tell people to start by being themselves.
Aleah: That's great advice. Do you have anything you'd like to ask of the jewelry world and of your listeners?
Sharon: Of the jewelry world, I'd like to ask if they have something they'd particularly like to listen to or a subject they're interested in. I’d like them to let me know so I can look at how I can do that.
Aleah: Is there anything I haven't asked that you've been thinking about, or that you want me to ask?
Sharon: No, I think you've covered everything in a lot more depth than I expected it to be covered.
Aleah: Thank you so much, Sharon.
Sharon: Thank you, Aleah.
Aleah: Before my dad, Jonathan, comes back to say a few final words, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that this is not the way we wanted to end this podcast, but since this was the end of Sharon's jewelry journey, and because she left an exquisite mark on the jewelry industry, we feel like this is the right way to leave a tribute to her. Her life was as beautiful as any piece of art or jewelry, and I'm going to continue to bring you stories, memories, photos and more from her jewelry journey. I would love to hear stories from you as well. In a moment, my father is going to tell you how you can share those.
Before I finish, I just want to take a moment to thank Olivia Consol. She has also been an editor on this podcast since the beginning and has done tremendous work. Olivia, thank you so much. It's always a joy to work with you.
Finally, thank you, Jewelry Journey listeners, friends and family. And now back to my dad, Jonathan.
Jonathan: That was Sharon's jewelry journey, and I'm really glad that you listened all the way to the end of it. I hope that you gained a better insight into my bride of 32 years, who was on her jewelry journey even before I met her, and how much pleasure she got sharing the stories of up-and-coming makers, the interesting people she met along the way, the wonderful trips she took with the organizations she belonged to, and just how much this jewelry journey fed her inner being.
We’ll be linking to various articles about Sharon and items of interest that will help to round out her experience, her jewelry journey, the organizations that she enjoyed, some articles about Sharon's collecting, and things we think would be interesting to you, including photographs that show you a portion of her jewelry journey collection. I hope you find them interesting. I certainly have.
I'd be very grateful if you would take a couple of minutes to leave your reviews of this podcast and your thoughts about Sharon, including anything you think would be interesting to share with us, her family, and with the larger community. I'll thank you for that in advance.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Jennifer Merchant:
Jennifer Merchant is a studio t based in Minneapolis, MN. She graduated with a BFA in Metals and Jewelry from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a full-time artist showcasing her work in galleries, museums and exhibitions. Her work has been published in several national magazines such as American Craft, Ornament and Delta Sky Magazine.
Merchant is best known for her innovative layered acrylic process in which images and prints are layered between solid acrylic. Her work is graphic with clean lines and modern aesthetic. Pieces confound viewers, appearing transparent from one angle of view while showcasing bold patterns and colors from another.
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Additional resources:
Transcript:
Like the op and pop art that inspires it, Jennifer Merchant’s jewelry challenges your eye. Clear from some angles and bold and colorful from others, the jewelry is created by layering acrylic with images from art books. Jennifer joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she developed her technique; how she chooses the images in her jewelry; and why art jewelers need to work together to push the discipline forward. Read the episode transcript here.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com.
Today, my guest is Jennifer Merchant. Jennifer was also a guest several years ago. She thought she would be a metalsmith but segued to acrylic jewelry, which is what she has become known for: creative and innovative acrylic jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches. They have eye-catching graphics embedded in them. I was also surprised to learn that hand carving is sometimes involved. Welcome back.
When you left college, did you know you were going to have your own business?
Jennifer: Not right away. I think it took me about five years to really get the confidence together to start my own business. I definitely spent that first five years after graduation very lost and not really sure what in the heck I was going to do with my jewelry degree, especially because I went to school in Savannah, Georgia. That's where I made all my art connections and jewelry connections. Moving back to Minneapolis, I was off on my own. I didn't have a community at that point. It definitely was a number of years of wondering, “How am I going to end up using this degree that cost me so much money?”
I had been waiting tables and was increasingly unhappy because I knew I had something different to offer the world. I ended up getting fired from a job. I had been speaking with a friend at work who had another friend that was putting on an art show. She had told me about it because she knew I was an artist. I remember getting fired from the job and calling her up right away, like, “I think I want to do that art show because I need to try to make some money.” It went okay, and it inspired me to say, “Jewelry is something you can do and make a living with. Let's give this a shot.”
I had to move back home with my mom for a couple of years and cut my expenses way down, because I wasn't going to take out another loan to start a business. I built it very small, very scrappy. I had a second bedroom in my mom's house where I had my workshop, and I started from there doing little local events. That's where it all started.
Sharon: Wow. What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to somebody who's just starting out?
Jennifer: I would say when you're just starting out, really try to find your voice.
Sharon: What do you do? What does one do when they find their voice? For instance, some people have found the voice, but they're homemakers or they work in an office. What do you do when you find your voice?
Jennifer: I think once you know what you want to say, the next step is finding out who wants to hear it. And that is a very hard step, finding your niche and finding your people that resonate with your voice. I think the only way to really do that is to get yourself out there, get your work out there.
I think with the Internet now and how accessible online stuff is, it might be a little easier to get yourself out there through social media, through the Internet, than maybe it was years ago when you had to have a physical presence out in the world. People can start by getting their work out there online and hopefully seeing who is interested, who connects with it, and then finding places in the real, outside world to continue that process and eventually find your market.
Sharon: Do you have people who come to you with the image they want to include already?
Jennifer: Not very often. I've had people ask me about that, but I think ultimately, I have to be drawn to the image specifically in order to be able to incorporate it in a piece. I did have a client that had a specific art piece she wanted in a bracelet for her daughter. That I was able to do because I resonated with the work and it was something that worked well within the form of jewelry.
I've also had requests where someone wants family mementos or something encased in the acrylic. That's a very cool, sentimental thing, but visually, it doesn't really work with my aesthetic as well. I'm not going to do something just because I get asked for it. I also have to be drawn to it enough in order to go through with it, because it is a labor-intensive process and it is an art of passion. If I'm not super excited about the thing I'm making, it's probably not going to turn out that great either.
I have tried to do things early on in my career specifically for a client that just didn't quite work out. We weren't on the same page. I think as you get more into it, you figure out the types of things you can push the boundaries on and the types of things that you can't. When someone's request is something that you can do and make them happy with, and when it's just not something that'll work out, you know.
Sharon: That's interesting. So if somebody brought you their wedding photo, it depends on whether you like the wedding dress or something like that.
Jennifer: Or if it has enough visual interest. I think the thing that makes my work successful is the images that I do use are interesting within a small scale of jewelry, and not all images can do that. I work with a lot of op art and pop art, and there's a lot of visual interest going on in a small space. With a photograph or something more sentimental, that's not always the case. It just wouldn't look as cool as they think it's going to.
Sharon: I've seen comic books used in your work. How did you come to that?
Jennifer: All of the things in my work that look like comic books are actually Roy Lichtenstein pieces. His pop art was inspired by comics, and he reimagined them into huge canvases and paintings. My jewelry does something similar, where I take Roy Lichtenstein's work and images and collect tons of books and rip out those pages and put that in my jewelry. It feels kind of meta. I've actually met some of his descendants and collectors and friends over the years, and a lot of them assure me that he would really appreciate what I'm doing with his work. It's a very similar idea as to how he repurposed art and things that he saw into something new and different.
Sharon: That’s interesting. I didn't know that. Did you study art history in college as you were studying jewelry and metal and all that?
Jennifer: Yeah, art history is definitely part of your Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It wasn't always my favorite class because the art history classes were about art that was ancient and a lot of religious art and that sort of thing. I think I had one class where it was modern art in the 20th century, which, of course, is the most interesting to me.
But that art history background definitely sparked some interest in different art movements and art periods. Art Deco is a very favorite design motif of mine. As I was talking about earlier, I'm very inspired by pop art and op art. I think art history plays a huge role. I never thought at the time when I was in school that I would end up studying more about art history and specific artists and doing that kind of research, but it is really important to my work now.
Sharon: Can you explain what the difference between pop art and op art is?
Jennifer: Sure. With pop art, everyone knows Roy Lichtenstein and Warhol. They took popular things or everyday objects like a soup can and made them stylized and put them in the context of fine art as this kind of ridiculous thing. Op art deals with optical properties. A lot of op art is very linear. It kind of tricks your eye. It looks like it's moving, but it's a static image.
Funny enough, when I started working with op art, I was actually collecting those optical illusions books for kids. There'd be very few usable images in there, but there'd be a few black and white, scintillating-looking, squiggly-lined spirals or something like that. That sparked my interest in optical art and looking it up outside of the context of those silly books for kids. I found out this is a whole art movement, and there are artists like Richard Anuszkiewicz and Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley that pioneered this in the 60s, when it really became a thing. I just find it so fascinating. But it's kind of funny that my two art movements that I use a lot in my work are pop and op. Like, who knew?
Sharon: Do you ever use any other kind besides those? You say you like Art Deco. I don't know what you’d use for an image, but I guess you could use an Art Deco image.
Jennifer: I think with Art Deco I am more inspired by the overall forms of pieces or the shapes. I like the ideas. I like the repetitive nature of Art Deco. They went from Art Nouveau, where it was all crazy and ornate, and then Art Deco kind of simplified things. It was a little more streamlined. I really like that. I think I carry those design principles through my work, not as much the direct visuals. Although if I could find great books with Art Deco prints of patterns or wallpapers or whatever, I’d love to use those. I just haven't quite found the right image sources yet for that.
Finding pop art and op art books has been pretty easy for me, and the images are just so striking, so that's why I’ve gravitated towards those. I'm open to other types of art and other artists. I just haven't moved on yet from the things I am working on. I can only focus on so many things at a time, but I could see myself doing some collections using Rothko paintings or Gerhard Richter with those interesting images, Jackson Pollock with the splashes. Those kinds of things I could see being very interesting within the context of layered acrylic. It just depends on where my book collection takes me.
Sharon: So, if we're looking at used books at a used bookstore, we should keep our eyes open for interesting things that could be used as interesting prints.
Jennifer: Yeah. I actually buy so many of my books online because physical shops only have so many things, and what I'm looking for is so specific. The art sections are usually kind of small, so I've ended up finding a lot of online retailers. I've gotten pretty good at being able to figure out whether a book is going to be visually interesting based on the online listing. I will even look at the size of the book, if they list dimensions, to give me ideas. If it seems like a good coffee table art book with lots of pictures, that's what I'm trying to find. Something with lots of great images.
Sharon: It sounds like people would be very interested in your leftovers.
Jennifer: I have a whole shelf of these books that are like little skeletons. You can see the sections where I've really gone to town ripping pages out, and then other sections that are left. There's plenty of things I leave in the book that I think are amazing, but they just aren't going to work for jewelry. Yeah, I've got a lot of skeleton books on my shelf. I keep them. I can't get rid of them.
Sharon: I like that, skeleton books. Once again, it’s a Herculean task, the whole thing of starting your own business. Would you say that there is somebody that inspired you and keeps inspiring you?
Jennifer: I wouldn't say it's a specific person. I think after that initial, tiny show that I did trying to sell my work, I think the most inspiring thing was seeing the other artists and seeing people that were making a living doing their work. I think that's what's really inspiring to me, finally meeting other people that were already doing what I wanted to do and realizing, “Wow, this is a viable career path.”
There's not a lot of artists in my family, so no one really had any advice to give me back in the day. They weren't necessarily unsupportive, but they didn't really know how to encourage my art, either. It's been very helpful getting out there and seeing people that are doing things and just being inspired. Different artists and different people inspire me for very different reasons. Some artists, their work is the thing that inspires you, and other artists have such a great work ethic or a really creative way of marketing. I try to keep my eyes and ears open all the time, and I let inspirations muddle around in my brain. And then one day some other thing will trigger an idea. You just never know. I try to always be open.
Sharon: I'm surprised; I usually see you at shows where there are a lot of other art jewelers, which is what I categorize you as. I see art jewelers, makers a lot. I'm thinking of New York City Jewelry Week, which is where I saw you once or twice. The last time I saw you, I wasn't able to say hello. I would think you'd be more—well, maybe it's the way I am, but I'd be more envious or competitive seeing all the other art jewelers, as opposed to finding inspiration.
Jennifer: I don't know. I don't think of it as a competition in any way. I think it helps me a lot because my work is so different from everyone else's, so there isn't a super direct comparison. I think maybe for some other types of jewelers it might be a little different because there is more of a direct comparison with their aesthetic or their materials. In that respect, there isn't really competition.
I used to be a lot more of a competitive person, but as I've gotten older and been in the business long enough and met all different artists, you just see that it's so much more about passion and drive. You can be successful doing just about anything if you're willing to put the work in.
I’ve met so many different people with so many different types of jewelry and art, and they're successful in radically different ways. Even if some other artist is successful in a way that will never work for me, I still love learning about what they're doing. Even if it doesn't directly apply to me, there's something in that lesson, in listening to them and their story that might click something for me in an indirect manner. So, I really do try to be open and inspired by everyone, and I definitely don't see it as competition.
I think it's great seeing more and more art jewelers getting work out there, making things that are big and bold and wild and weird materials. The more of it that's out there, the better for all of us, because then the consumer or the client is seeing more of it out in the world. Then when they come across my work, it might not seem as weird or as off putting. They might get it a little bit faster and a little bit easier because of all the other people that came before me and all the people that are alongside me. I think working together as a community, being inspired by each other, helping each other be successful, that can only help all of us.
Sharon: Do you think when people first see your art, they don't think of it as jewelry because it doesn't have diamonds or emeralds? Do they think of it as a throw away, in a way?
Jennifer: Oh, yeah. I've had the gamut of reactions to my work, and it really depends on the setting it’s in as well as how people respond to it. There are definitely people out there that, to them, jewelry is diamonds and gold, and that's fine. I might not be able to change their mind. Other people see the work and, right away, think it looks cool. Maybe they didn't even know it was a bracelet, but they were drawn to it. Then when they find out it's an actual wearable piece, they're even more blown away. You never know what kind of reaction you're going to get from people.
I've definitely had to do a lot of educating on my process and the materials because when someone sees a plastic necklace that costs $2,000, they kind of scratch their heads, like, “What is going on here?” And then I tell them all about the process and all the different steps and all the different things that went into it. Sometimes you win people over, and sometimes they're like, “Why bother?” I just try to pay more attention to the people that are won over and interested. If they're not, that's fine. I know my work is not for everyone, and I'm okay with that.
Sharon: That’s an interesting philosophy. You’ve given me a different perspective as well on your jewelry. Thank you for being here today, Jennifer.
Jennifer: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Jennifer Merchant:
Jennifer Merchant is a studio t based in Minneapolis, MN. She graduated with a BFA in Metals and Jewelry from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a full-time artist showcasing her work in galleries, museums and exhibitions. Her work has been published in several national magazines such as American Craft, Ornament and Delta Sky Magazine.
Merchant is best known for her innovative layered acrylic process in which images and prints are layered between solid acrylic. Her work is graphic with clean lines and modern aesthetic. Pieces confound viewers, appearing transparent from one angle of view while showcasing bold patterns and colors from another.
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Additional resources:
Transcript:
Like the op and pop art that inspires it, Jennifer Merchant’s jewelry challenges your eye. Clear from some angles and bold and colorful from others, the jewelry is created by layering acrylic with images from art books. Jennifer joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she developed her technique; how she chooses the images in her jewelry; and why art jewelers need to work together to push the discipline forward. Read the episode transcript here.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week.
Today, my guest is Jennifer Merchant. Jennifer was also a guest several years ago. She thought she would be a metalsmith but segued to acrylic jewelry, which is what she has become known for: creative and innovative acrylic jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches. They have eye-catching graphics embedded in them. I was also surprised to learn that hand carving is sometimes involved.
Jennifer exhibits all over the country. She's been an active member of SNAG, the Society of North American Goldsmiths. She is also a member of other major jewelry organizations. Jennifer is going to tell us all about why she has chosen this route and her process in general. Jennifer, welcome to the program.
Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me, Sharon.
Sharon: I'm glad to have you. Why did you start working with acrylics?
Jennifer: I actually started working with acrylic while I was still in college at the Savannah College of Art and Design studying metalsmithing and jewelry. Our professor gave us little chunks of acrylic one day, probably with the thought of using it for die forms. But I decided, “Hey, you can cut and sculpt this very similarly to working with waxes for lost wax casting.” I liked the immediacy of the acrylic, that once you carved it and sculpted it and polished it, it was a finished piece. It had a lot of really cool optical properties. So, I always kept it on the back burner as an interesting material.
Then when I graduated from college and I moved back to my hometown of Minneapolis, I didn't have the tools and equipment to keep working with metal. So, I kind of fell into, “Hey, there was that acrylic I worked with a couple of times in school. It was very interesting. Let's see what we can do with that,” because it was cheap, and I could cut it with simple tools. I started experimenting with it from there.
Sharon: And you make all sorts of jewelry with it. Do you know when you start out that you'll be making a necklace or a bracelet with the pieces you have, or do they talk to you as you put them together?
Jennifer: I make pieces both ways. Sometimes I'll design a piece very specifically and have an idea and a picture in my mind of what I'm making. But then there's other times, especially when I'm working with the scraps that are left over from pieces that I've made in the past. A lot of those scraps are still very interesting, and they'll be in weird shapes. Those will speak to me, and I'll create something new and different with some of those. I kind of work both ways.
Sharon: I know you're in a lot of stores and galleries. Do stores tell you what to do, or do you just say, “Here it is, do you like it”?
Jennifer: I'm more of a, “Here's what I've been making. Let me know which ones you like.” I think sometimes it's important to follow your own inspirations. People tend to be drawn to the things that I'm most excited to make.
That being said, some galleries have different clientele bases with different price points, so they’ll tell me, “Hey, these pieces were working really well.” I'll take some feedback. But ultimately, I focus on making the things that I'm drawn to.
Sharon: Do you have a studio inside your home or do you have a place that you go?
Jennifer: For years I did have a studio outside of my home that I really loved, but a few years ago my husband and I bought a home, and I decided to move my jewelry practice into my home. So, now I work from home. But who knows, maybe in the future I'll expand a little bit and have another space in addition outside the home. It can be kind of a challenge working at home sometimes, but I've done both. I like working both ways, so we'll see what the future has for me.
Sharon: Do you have assistants who work with you?
Jennifer: I've had assistants in the past. I don't anymore. I scaled my business way back during COVID and took a breather to reevaluate what I'm doing and where my motivations are. I'm only just beginning to build it back. At this point, I don't work with anyone, but hopefully in the future I can find someone to help out with some of the production.
It's a little challenging to find an assistant because my process is very unique. It's not something that people know how to do, so there's a lot of training involved. When I do work with people, it takes quite a while to get somebody that can help finish pieces to the quality standards that my galleries and clients expect.
Sharon: When you were reevaluating things, what did you decide? Did your method change during COVID?
Jennifer: I think things just slowed way down during COVID. 2020, honestly, it was going to be my year. I had a couple of really big events planned, one of which I got to do because it was in February, but the rest all moved online. There was such a lull in events and things to participate in. I had started questioning what my motivations are, because you really have to love what you're doing in order to be an artist as a profession. We had bought a house and were settling in. I've just been taking the last few years to figure out life so I can bring my A-game to my business again.
Sharon: Did you stop production because you were doing it yourself during COVID?
Jennifer: I did slow way down on production. If I had a client that was interested in something, or if I had an online event or that kind of thing, that would motivate me to produce some new pieces. But there were just fewer things going on to spark that creation.
I have a harder time making things just because. I like to have an outside influence, like a show that's coming up or events that are going to happen and people are going to see my pieces. When I don't know when those things are going on, I have a little bit of a harder time. I think that is why during COVID, everything slowed down for me especially.
But it also gave me a lot of time to think about what I want out of my business and where I want to go. And in May, I'll be launching my first web shop where you can actually buy my pieces directly from me.
Sharon: Wow. I know that's a Herculean task.
Jennifer: For me personally, the web shop is an extra big step because all of my pieces, even my production work, is one of a kind because of the images I'm using within my jewelry. They're all found images from art books and other sources. So, even if it's the same shape, like the marquee hoop earring, no two are going to be the exact same. So, every time I list a piece online for sale, I have to photograph each and every single one of them.
It's taken a long time to get some of those things down where I could do it quickly enough and efficiently enough to be able to post all of these pieces with the right listings. It's a lot more work than having a design where you can put a picture of it and sell 25 of them. It's been a daunting thing to tackle.
Sharon: Did you have to wait until you were efficient at photographing and making them so you could just churn them out?
Jennifer: My work is very difficult to photograph because it is clear and transparent from some angles, and then it's bright and colorful from others. It's also very reflective. So, trying to photograph it cleanly and communicate the piece in a single image is very difficult. My work tends to resonate more from multiple angles. It has taken years to figure out the best way to represent these pieces in an image or two.
Sharon: The online shop, do you think it's your most valuable social media outlet? Is there one? What do you think that is?
Jennifer: For me, I'm not huge on social media. Instagram, I think, is the most fun. It's very image forward, which is something I really enjoy. Definitely, as I launch my website, I will be on social media a lot more to market. I think up until now I've mostly worked with galleries and shops or done specific events, so I haven't cultivated my online audience as much. I'm excited to explore that new chapter and get more into it and see what I can do from my home. That way in the future, when something happens where in-person events may not be happening as much, I can still have a connection to my audience.
I've been getting asked for years, “Where can I find your pieces?” Because everything is one of a kind, if it's at a gallery in California, someone in Georgia is going to have a hard time getting their hands on it. I think it'll be really nice having my own shop so that people can have one destination to go, as well as all of the others, to be able to have that access.
Sharon: How did you start getting galleries and stores interested in you?
Jennifer: I have been contacted by most of the places that I work with. Earlier in my career, I did a lot more events and shows and I was able to meet gallery owners. Also, early on in my career, I met some of the people that work for the American Craft Council, which is based in Minneapolis. When they saw a local Minneapolis artist at a show in Chicago and met me and thought my work was cool, they were like, “You're in our city. Let's invite her to some events.” They really took me under their wing and wrote about my work and got me out there. I got a lot of contacts just from people seeing the articles that they had posted.
For me, it's been a lot of just doing what I do, and because my work is so unique and different, people that it resonates with will remember and contact me, like, “Hey, we've never seen anything like this. Let's try it out at our gallery.” I've been very fortunate in that way, where I haven't really had to go out on my own, cold calling and trying to get appointments and that sort of thing. I just try to make really interesting work, get it out there as much as I can, and then hope that it snowballs from there. So far, that's been working for me.
Sharon: Wow. I think it's great that you didn't have to cold call and that people were interested in your stuff, which is very unusual. I don't know anybody who does anything like that. So, you’re very lucky.
Jennifer: I'm very lucky that it worked out for me because I can be a little socially awkward with the cold calling and things like that. That was never my favorite part of the business. I am fortunate that my work speaks for itself. It's kind of a love it or hate it thing, which can be its own challenge, but it's definitely unique enough where when people see it, if they're interested, they will hunt me down and ask me about it. That's been very nice.
Sharon: If an outlet wants more than one, maybe they want five bracelets, do you tell them right away that you can make the five bracelets, but they’ll all have different graphics?
Jennifer: Yeah. I did a couple wholesale shows a while ago where it was that challenge of, “Well, here's a design, but they're all going to be different, and you're not really going to know until you get them.” I think most people that are interested in my work like that one-of-a-kind nature of it. That's part of the interest, so they trust me. If they get pieces that maybe that imagery doesn't speak to them or their clientele, we'll talk about it and I can swap it out, get them some prints and patterns that they like better. It's kind of a back-and-forth process. And the longer I work with a gallery or a person, the more I get to know what works there. Then I can tailor my offerings to them for what works.
Sharon: Where do you find your images and the pictures that you put in your jewelry?
Jennifer: When I first started, I was using magazines because they were readily available, fairly inexpensive, and that's how I started this whole process of layered acrylic. But the paper in those is not very good quality and the pictures fade. It's also a challenge to find enough usable content.
So, then I started purchasing art books. I would become interested in a specific artist and start collecting books about their work, and those books always had a lot of really amazing images. They're printed on really nice paper with good quality inks, and they're much more successful layering than magazines. Now I exclusively use books. I've become somewhat of a rare and vintage book collector. It's a really fun part of my job, hunting down these different books, figuring out artists that inspire me to start collecting things about their work and then finding really cool images.
If there's a particular book that has a lot of really great images that I like, I will start looking for other copies of it. There are certain books about Roy Lichtenstein's work. There’s one about posters that has a catalog in the back with all these smaller thumbnail images, and they're so great for making earrings, things like that. I must've bought that book like 10 times. So, that's where I get my images. It's all purchased materials like books that I then rip up and cut up and put in between the acrylic.
Sharon: Well, you answered the question. I was going to ask you if you cut the books up or what you do. You also mentioned that magazines got you going with layered acrylic. Can you tell us about that?
Jennifer: When I was younger, I subscribed to all kinds of fashion magazines and fun things, and I would keep them after reading them. I had shelves and shelves of magazines. When I first started working with acrylic, I had this idea that acrylic has pretty cool visual properties, optical properties, and when you put images underneath it, it looks so interesting. That's when I started going through my fashion magazines, lots of issues of Vogue. I would see cool prints on dresses and things like that, and I would rip those pages out and try to fit the prints and things that were in there within my jewelry designs. That's how I got started with the whole thing. It was just cheap materials I already had.
Sharon: What are your sales policies? Do you accept returns? If I'm a client and you give me something and I say, “No, that's not what I want,” do you accept returns? What do you do?
Jennifer: Yeah, I do accept returns. I think it depends. If it's a piece that already existed and they buy it and it just didn't work out, or it doesn't fit quite right or it wasn't what they were expecting, absolutely. It becomes a little more of a gray area when it's a custom piece, when someone wants specific imagery and this and that. That tends to be a little more delicate. That being said, I want people to keep my jewelry because they love it, not because they're trapped. So, even a custom order, if it doesn't come out quite as they were expecting, I try to work with people to either make it right or try something new.
Some of the events that I do, it's a museum show where they're handling the sales and they're getting a commission, I'm getting a commission from the sale. Even though I'm selling to the customer directly, because it goes through the museum, usually it's an all-sales-are-final type situation, just because of the nature of the commissions and if they've already paid me and then the person changes their mind. It depends on the venue through which I'm selling the work.
I would say most times, yes, returns are acceptable within a certain time frame, but there are certain instances where they are final sale. But even in that situation—I had a client come a couple of years later to a show, and she had this ring. I decided, “You know what? It's a really cool ring. Let's swap it out.” She wanted a pendant. I like to be a little flexible. Like I said, I want people to have my jewelry because they love it, not because they're forced to keep it.
Sharon: I'm curious; in your studio, do you have pets that keep you company?
Jennifer: I do. I've got a dog and a cat. My cat, Shackleton, likes to work with me. I have two workspaces in my home. Downstairs is the shop, the studio, and then upstairs I have an office where I do the bonding and the image gathering and looking through layouts. The cat, Shackleton, likes to hang out upstairs in the office and sit on all my papers and be in the way, but be very cute. Then my dog, her name's Sophia. She tends to stay out of the studio because it's loud and dusty. She'll come in the office and hang out, too, sometimes. But I don't know. She kind of does her own thing. She lets me work.
Sharon: Well, it sounds like nice company. Do you make more than one piece at a time? All the pieces and extras, let's say, do you put them in a closet and then pull them out if somebody wants them? What do you do?
Jennifer: I definitely always have some inventory on hand. I think as far as when I'm making pieces, as I was saying earlier, I tend to make when I have an event or I'm preparing for something coming up. Then I'll usually go above and beyond and make extra just to have. Also, because my pieces are one of a kind and the imagery is different on each earring, each ring, each bracelet, I will make more than I know I'm going to need or sell at a specific time, mostly to have options for my clients, because all the pieces are different and have different images. You never know what someone's going to be drawn to.
It's especially difficult with things that have a size, like a ring or a bracelet. Then I make tons of them because you have to have lots of options. With those kinds of things, I'll take a lot more custom orders because someone will see something in person that they love, but it's not their size. I do my best to recreate things for people. I don't generally remake things with the exact same images because usually it's impossible, but I will do my best to get something with a similar aesthetic or feeling for people.
We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out. Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Gabriela Sierra
Gaby, designer and creator of Gabriela Sierra jewelry, is anything but a minimalist. Unafraid of color, she plays with bold shapes, textures and asymmetry. Her meticulously crafted pieces are meant to be conversation starters.
With a background in Industrial Design followed by a variety of courses at Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School, Gabriela Sierra merges design and fashion to create unique sculptural jewelry. The brand seeks to reflect the spirit of the slowmade process (quality over quantity). Founded in 2021, Gabriela Sierra is committed to good design by focusing on quality materials and the revaluation of craftsmanship.
Her work has been shown at different worldwide exhibitions:
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Transcript:
Expertly combining bold colors and shapes in her jewelry, it’s clear that Gabriela Sierra has an eye for design. Beginning her career in furniture and packaging design, Gabriela made her lifelong dream of becoming a jewelry maker come true in 2021, when she opened Gabriela Sierra Jewelry. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how her upbringing in Mexico and her current home in Montreal influence her work; why her business follows “slow made” principles; and how she became more confident about calling herself a jewelry designer. Read the episode transcript here.
Welcome to the Jewelry Journey, exploring the hidden world of art around you. Because every piece of art has a story, and jewelry is no exception.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com.
Today, I'm talking with Gabriela Sierra of Gabriela Sierra Jewelry. Welcome back.
So, everything might not be handcrafted, but you have chosen those individual stones to go together or the kind of stone to work with. For instance, will you choose a faceted stone to work with? Could you have a combination of a faceted stone with a cabochon with a smooth curve?
Gabriela: Yes. I already have some designs before combining these different types of cuts. Yes, for sure. I'm not like, “I'm just going to work with cabochon and that's it.” No. I think t I'm open to work with different kinds of cuts. I like to work with cuts that are not the traditional ones. I just create new cuts and new cuts, and then as I mentioned, I make an order with my suppliers to have a sample to see if it really works, because in my mind everything works perfectly. I need to see the real thing physically, here with me in my hands, to see if everything is okay.
Sharon: Do you go to the Tucson Show in Arizona to choose stones?
Gabriela: No, I haven’t had a chance to go. I see the videos and I see that all the jewelers I follow go there. I do wish to go there, but I just recently received my American visa. That was one of the reasons why I didn't go to the Tucson Show. But I would love to have the opportunity to go. Maybe next year. For sure, I want to go. Next year it's easier.
Here in Montreal there's also a gem show, a smaller version. It was last year. I think it's here every year. I went there last year, and it was very good. Of course, to a new person it's just huge. There are a lot of suppliers from everywhere, from every part of the world, so I really wanted to go.
Sharon: How do you decide if it's a good quality stone versus one that's not as good? Is it just by eye, or do you look through a loupe?
Gabriela: I don't have a lot of knowledge. I’m not trained to really recognize if a stone is a very good quality stone. I think I just need to love the stone and see that it’s without any breakage, it's not with a hole or some kind of damage. I need to love the stone, and it needs to be a good cut in my opinion. I'm not an expert gemologist, so I cannot tell if it's perfectly cut. I just need to see the stone and if it's love at first sight. If I love the stone, it's perfect.
Sharon: Does it have to fit a certain bezel or do you make the bezel to fit the stone? Most of your gems seem to be bezel set.
Gabriela: At the beginning, when I first chose the stones and then designed, yes, I based my design on the gemstone. I created the bezel around it. But after that, when I had a clear concept, I designed first and then chose the stone. When I order the stones, they need to be the size that I need because I cannot change the design. But yes, basically all my gemstones are with a bezel.
Sharon: Do you have a studio outside your home, or a place inside your apartment or home where you design your jewelry?
Gabriela: In Mexico, my studio is in my house in Querétaro. Querétaro is the city where I live. It's in my house. The first floor is all my studio. Now Samantha is working there. But now here in Montréal, last year, last October, I found a place that rents a space for jewelers. I'm a resident there and I work from there. I have all the necessary things because it's an atelier. The atelier is called Artéfact. A lot of jewelers from Montreal rent their space and work there to create their pieces.
Sharon: Can you go any time, or do you have to sign up for certain times?
Gabriela: No, because I'm a resident, I can go if I want to go. During the night I can go. Any time I want. They give classes there also, but it doesn't matter if they are giving classes. I can go whenever I want.
In Montreal it’s a little bit different. It's difficult to have a studio in your house or apartment. You need a permit because you’re working with gas, with fire, with chemicals. It’s different. In Mexico we don't need permits to have a gas tank in our house. Here it’s a little bit different.
Sharon: Do you ever get nervous working with fire and chemicals? Does that make you nervous?
Gabriela: At the beginning, yes. Yes, of course. Because you’re working with gas, if you're not careful enough, there could be an accident. Also, because my studio is in my house, I was worried at the beginning that I needed to be very careful because this is my house. My husband lives here. My stuff is here. So, yeah, I need to be careful. I was nervous at the beginning because I was working with fire. But you just need to follow the steps. That's it. If you work carefully and follow the precautions, you are good.
Sharon: And you have a pet. Do they keep you company in the studio? Where do they keep you company?
Gabriela: Yes, I have a dog. Her name is Jude Right now, she is in Mexico, but I will bring her here very soon because I miss her so much. She was the one reminding me every day, “Hey, Gabi, it's time to go home. I'm hungry. Let's go home.” Home for her was the second floor of our house. I miss her so much. It's more than love for me and for my husband.
Sharon: Does she comfort you? If you're having a bad day with the stones, do you get comfort from her?
Gabriela: Yes. I don't know what dogs have, but they know if you are feeling bad or you are sad or you are happy. They just know. She approaches every time I feel bad or sad, or I break a bezel or I break a gemstone. She knows. Also because I scream a lot and I'm saying bad words.
Sharon: I want to talk to you a little bit about starting the business, deciding to start the business and keeping it going. You're newer in your making journey than some of the people I've talked to on the podcast. What made you decide that it was time to leave?
Gabriela: Well, COVID hit, and I think for many people, it was a time to reflect, and I reflected and reevaluated my path. That was the moment that I decided to quit my job as a packaging specialist. It was hard. A lot of people called me crazy because it was a very difficult time, but I was so sure. I don't know what COVID had at that particular time but it gave me a signal or something that I wasn't in the right place. That particular time was hard, but it gave me the strength to start my jewelry business and start to set up my studio.
During COVID, I took some classes to refresh the techniques that I had learned years before at Alchimia to start making jewelry. I learned a lot of techniques, but the years passed, and I needed a refresh. But it was hard. I’m not going to lie; it was really hard. Because I was new, I was scared. I was afraid of failure. In my mind, I was thinking, “Who is going to buy my jewelry? Who is going to like my jewelry? How will I pay all my bills.?” All those questions started to appear in my mind.
You asked me a question about how I introduce myself, and I told you that I felt comfortable to say I was a jewelry maker a year ago. I had a lot of insecurity. I wasn't sure that I was a jewelry maker because I wasn't prepared in a jewelry school. I didn't have the proper school, I didn't have a proper education for being a jeweler. It was tough at the beginning, but then my work started to get noticed, to get exposed, and I had the opportunity to be in different exhibitions. I think the trust grew from there, and I feel more and more comfortable calling myself a jewelry maker now.
Sharon: What is your distribution? How do people hear about you? Do people place orders at shows, or do you exhibit all over the world?
Gabriela: Mainly my clients buy the pieces from my webpage. I also have my pieces in some stores in Mexico City. Right now, I have some of my pieces in Vancouver in a gallery. For exhibitions, they could have been bought during the exhibitions, but the exhibition is just for a couple of days, and those exhibitions were one or two years ago. The other one was two years ago. The last one is actually right now. It's Earrings Galore. The last place this exhibition was in was Mexico City, actually. Before that, Earrings Galore was in New York City at New York City Jewelry Week.
Sharon: You exhibited there. Do you have to go into galleries? Are you a salesperson? Are you the salesperson, or do you put the jewelry out and people can decide what they're doing?
Gabriela: Well, I'm the one who gets all the customers’ messages and everything, but in the exhibitions, I cannot go to every single one of them, so I just send the pieces and there’s a person there in charge of showing the pieces and selling the pieces.
Sharon: Do you ever have to go to galleries and sell your stuff? You mentioned these stores in Mexico City that have your things. Did you have to show it yourself? Did they see your pieces and like them beforehand without knowing you? How did it work?
Gabriela: For example, that one in Mexico City, I couldn't be there because I was here in Montreal. So, they could go to the exhibition and see my pieces there and try them on, see if they like them or not, but I couldn't be there. I wish I could have, but I couldn't. I want to go and attend different expositions or craft fairs. I want to start doing those, probably next year or at the end of this year.
Sharon: Who buys your jewelry? Who buys your earrings? Do men buy them for women? Do women buy them for themselves?
Gabriela: My main customers are from the U.S., actually. And most of my customers, the majority are women. A few of them are men. Actually, they are the ones who message me first through my Instagram account and ask me, “My wife really likes these earrings. She's showing me these earrings, but I don't know if she is going to wear them. Can you tell me if they are too big or too heavy? Can you show me pictures or a video wearing them?” Sometimes I can do that because if you message me through my Instagram account, I'm the one who answers every single message. Maybe I can take a little bit long to answer back, but for sure you will get an answer.
Sharon: You mentioned COVID. Did that affect taking classes? Were you doing it through Zoom? Did it affect your business? How did you do it?
Gabriela: During COVID, yeah. Mexico had a lot of restrictions, but during COVID, I went to my friend's studio. She is an amazing jeweler also. She was giving classes to a small group of people. We were three people per class, with distance between each other. So, yes, we had the classes in person.
I basically didn't sell during the first year of COVID because in that year I was still working in packaging. The second year of COVID, I was almost ready. My studio was almost ready. I just started to show my work on my Instagram account, but I had just 20 followers or something. It was just the beginning. I really can’t tell you if COVID affected me as a brand because I was just beginning.
Sharon: What kind of brand were you after? Give us some buzzwords about your brand. Are you high end? Are you for everyone? Tell us a little bit about your jewelry.
Gabriela: Yes, of course. As I mentioned, I really like bold colors and shapes. I love to work with asymmetry and statement pieces. I love when my clients tell me that someone stopped and asked her, “I love your earrings! Where did you buy them?” I love them to be conversation starters. The main focus or the reason that I wake up every morning to make these pieces is to make people smile just looking at my pieces. I love to play with color. Bold colors, bold shapes, big earrings.
Sharon: You consider your jewelry a conversation starter. Is the way that people hear about your earrings, let’s say, by word of mouth? Tell us a little bit about that.
Gabriela: At the beginning when I started, my first customers were people from my city in Querétaro because I started to pay for some announcements, just in my city or in Mexico City. I started first with friends and family, as a normal startup or business that just starts. Then the word spread a little bit. Then it was like, “My friend Blanca told me about you and I love her earrings. Can you show me your earrings?” At that particular time, I didn't have a web page. I just had my Instagram account. So, with WhatsApp, I would send them some pictures of the pieces that I had at that particular moment, some videos of me wearing them. Also, if they wanted, because it was COVID still, I’d invite them to my studio to see the earrings in person.
Right now, because my journey started on Instagram, boutiques got in touch with me to ask for my pieces. Then the clients grew because I had pieces in Mexico City or in Guadalajara. Then I started to learn about a little bit of marketing, making advertisements on Instagram or Facebook to show my pieces to markets out there in the United States and Europe and Japan. It was amazing for me to see how Instagram helped me grow my business, to show my pieces in Japan or New Zealand or Europe. For me, it was amazing because I didn't think my pieces would go there and people from there were going to like my pieces.
Sharon: I could see how that would be exciting. Well, we wish you the best and that your business keeps going. Thank you very much.
Gabriela: Thank you so much, Sharon. Thank you so much for this opportunity and for your invitation. I really appreciate it.
We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Gabriela Sierra
Gaby, designer and creator of Gabriela Sierra jewelry, is anything but a minimalist. Unafraid of color, she plays with bold shapes, textures and asymmetry. Her meticulously crafted pieces are meant to be conversation starters.
With a background in Industrial Design followed by a variety of courses at Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School, Gabriela Sierra merges design and fashion to create unique sculptural jewelry. The brand seeks to reflect the spirit of the slowmade process (quality over quantity). Founded in 2021, Gabriela Sierra is committed to good design by focusing on quality materials and the revaluation of craftsmanship.
Her work has been shown at different worldwide exhibitions:
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Transcript:
Expertly combining bold colors and shapes in her jewelry, it’s clear that Gabriela Sierra has an eye for design. Beginning her career in furniture and packaging design, Gabriela made her lifelong dream of becoming a jewelry maker come true in 2021, when she opened Gabriela Sierra Jewelry. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how her upbringing in Mexico and her current home in Montreal influence her work; why her business follows “slow made” principles; and how she became more confident about calling herself a jewelry designer. Read the episode transcript here.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week.
Today, I'm talking with Gabriela Sierra of Gabriela Sierra Jewelry. Her Mexican heritage shines through because of the bold colors in her jewelry. You will immediately see that when you look at her jewelry. I'm talking to her today, and she's in Canada, where she travels.
She specializes in earrings. She uses recycled silver, and the stones she uses come from small, independent mines or mines that are located in Mexico. She believes in slow made. Her jewelry is meticulously crafted, and she does not have any inventory on hand. Almost everything is made to order at somebody’s request. Today, Gabriela will tell us about her business and how it works. Gabriela, welcome to the program.
Gabriela: I'm so excited to be here, Sharon. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Sharon: Can you tell us how you decided on jewelry as a profession?
Gabriela: Yes, sure. Well, I have always been drawn to jewelry since I was a kid. I was influenced by my mom and my grandmother. I remember her presence was always announced by the clicking of her bangles and her bold earrings.
I studied industrial design, and during university I took a jewelry class. That experience started everything, just initiated my passion. Basically, it started from that. I knew at that particular moment that I needed to find further training, so after I finished university, I took a four-month course at Alchimia Contemporary Jewelry School. I had an amazing time there, and also the teachers were absolutely wonderful. However, it took me some time to find the courage to start my own brand, which I did eventually, after eight years. Now I'm here.
Sharon: So, you studied industrial design before?
Gabriela: Yeah.
Sharon: Your passion for jewelry must have been underlying, and the industrial design really brought it out. So, after eight years, you decided to start your own brand. During most of that time, were you making different kinds of jewelry?
Gabriela: No, actually, when I came back to Mexico after taking the course at Alchimia, I was so afraid of failure. That's why I didn't start my own brand at that particular time. In my mind, it was better to find a normal job. So, during those eight years, I worked as a designer for furniture. I also specialized as a packaging engineer or packaging specialist. Basically, I wasn't working in jewelry those eight years.
Sharon: But you were working in design, right?
Gabriela: Yeah.
Sharon: Did your background help you in all of this? Does industrial design help?
Gabriela: Yes, of course. I think yeah, absolutely. Since the first job that I had, designing furniture, I actually like all the stripped elements. I take a lot of influence and ideas from what I see outside. You can actually see a few of my designs being an idea of a light bulb, for example. I think it helped a lot.
Also talking about packaging, especially the job that I had, it helped me a lot to understand a little bit of marketing and, of course, packaging. It gave me a big picture to understand a little bit more, not just the design part, but everything else, all the different areas involving the launch of a product.
Sharon: I'm sure you do a whole range of jewelry, but right now you seem to focus more on earrings. Is that true? And, if so, why?
Gabriela: Right now, yes, my main focus is on earrings. A month ago I started creating rings, a series of rings. But yes, I love earrings and my main focus is earrings. Why? The earrings are easier—not to create, but rings need to be sized. For me and in my experience, it’s easier to make earrings for everyone. Rings need to be sized, so it's not for everyone.
Sharon: Do you think you'll stick with earrings? Do you think you'll branch out from earrings to other things or stick with earrings?
Gabriela: No, I think I will start creating other things later on. Right now, I will create the series of rings. After that, I will probably start with some necklaces. But for sure, I will start doing things differently.
I’m from Mexico, but right now, I've been living in Montreal since last August. I came from another country and I’m learning about the culture here. Also, because I’m an atelier, I’m opening a new studio here in Montreal. I’m getting to know new artists and learning about them and their techniques. I think that travel helps a lot to create new things, just absorbing everything. So, I'm sure I'm going to create different things in the future, not just the earrings.
Sharon: Do you have ideas that you think about when you travel or see when you’re in Montreal? Does it give you ideas for different kinds of jewelry?
Gabriela: Yes, actually, my rings. I have made just three of them. I want to make 10. The concept behind the rings is winter. This is the first winter that I spent here in Montreal. What's beautiful is that it was the first time I saw snow. For me, it was beautiful. It was a big change. And it wasn’t just beautiful, it was also very hard.
I wanted to encapsulate this snow in these rings. They are quartz. They're carbon quartz, but the inside is similar to snow. What I wanted to create there was the idea of encapsulating snow, encapsulating that particular moment that I saw the snow on the street. They are big, they are bold. Yeah, they're big.
Sharon: Do you like the snow? Can you find it in Mexico, like in the mountains or somewhere?
Gabriela: Yes, you can find snow in Mexico, probably in the mountains or in the north of Mexico, like very close to the United States. But it’s not like here. The winter in Montreal is very tough. I think once we were -16 Celsius, so it’s very hard.
Sharon: Why do you manufacture in Mexico? I assume it's less expensive to manufacture there.
Gabriela: Well, my studio remains in Querétaro. My partner, Samantha, is in charge of making the pieces that can be replicated there. I'm the one in charge of overseas, making sure everything runs smoothly in Querétaro. Here, I work and make the one-of-a-kind pieces. Basically, most of the pieces are shipped from Querétaro. The silver is from Mexico. Most of the stones are from Mexico also. The pieces that I make here, most of the stones are from here or the United States. These particular pieces are shipped from here because I made them here.
Sharon: How do you decide which stones in which colors? You seem to flip, using the same color but a different combination, and some are totally different.
Gabriela: I think at the beginning when I didn't have a clear concept, I let the stones guide me through the combinations of the pieces. But after that, now that I have a clearer concept, I design first and then I pick the gemstones. Mexico is a country with a lot of gemstones, so I have a wide variety to choose from. I didn't have any problem finding beautiful gemstones there. But yeah, at the beginning, the stones basically guided me. I designed pieces based on the stone and the shape of the stone, then I created the pieces. Now, I’ve had more time designing and creating jewelry, so I first create the design and then decide which stone will be better with the design and the concept.
Sharon: When you say the stones guided you, do the stones ever talk to you and tell you what they should be or what they should be combined with?
Gabriela: Yes, absolutely. It's funny, but yes. It is something that I used to say. “The earnings are like this this because they told me they needed to be combined with this stone in this particular shape in this particular order.” Yeah, the stones talk to me a lot. It was more at the beginning, but now they just say, “Okay, I like your design, so yes, we can go together.”
Sharon: Do they ever say, “No, that's not right,” or “I don't like this”?
Gabriela: Yes, they do. For example, I first design a piece. Then I send the drawing to my supplier or different suppliers. I receive a sample, and then I see it with the silver, and I try them and finish that prototype. I need to see if they are good together, and sometimes it’s just not right. It feels not right. Maybe those stones don’t want to be next to the silver or this particular stone. I don't know. But yeah, totally.
Sharon: So you use different suppliers for stones?
Gabriela: Yes. In Mexico, as I previously said, we have a lot of options, and I have great connections with local suppliers here. The first one, the main one was Don Guille he was the first lapidary that I worked with.
Sharon: I'm sorry; is that a company name or a person's name?
Gabriela: I'm sorry. I called him by his nickname. His name is Guillermo.
Sharon: Okay. That's where you got your first stones from?
Gabriela: Yeah. He passed away, and now his son and grandsons continue his craft. I also have other suppliers in San Miguel. I also have one from India, Naseem. I also get some gemstones from India. Those three are my main suppliers. Now I'm here in Montreal and I am finding new ones because I prefer to work with the stones that are close to me in Canada. I also have a lot of gemstones in the United States.
Sharon: Do you have a favorite stone?
Gabriela: Yes, I have one. I don't know if you know this gemstone. The name of this gemstone is cotton candy agate. This particular gemstone is from Mexico. I love the color of this gemstone because it reminds me of a cherry blossom. It's a very soft pastel pink. That is my favorite gemstone, but I love all types of jaspers. I love gemstones with a lot of personality and different patterns and different colors. Actually, the first one that I mentioned, the cotton candy agate, most of my first designs and pieces were with this gemstone. I created a collection with this one.
Sharon: You use a lot of silver. Have you ever used a different metal?
Gabriela: No. All my pieces are made with silver until last week, because I finished a ring and I incorporated copper. But that's the only piece that I incorporated copper. I'm just experimenting to see how it looks, how I work with this new material, because I hadn’t worked with copper before. Mainly all the pieces that you see on my webpage are with silver, 10.50 silver.
Sharon: Going back to the cotton candy stone, the pale pink stone, tell us about working with something like that. Is it easier to work with?
Gabriela: That particular gemstone is easy to work with. The only difficult thing is that it's not easy to find. It’s from Mexico, but it's not easy to find that particular gemstone. That's why I have a few gemstones and that particular agate, but I'm saving them for the future because I haven’t found more of this gemstone.
Sharon: Do you get other stones or other pink stones? Is Mexico the only place that you can find them? Can you find them in the United States or in Canada also?
Gabriela: Yes, you can find it in the United States, but they are from Mexico. There are suppliers that bought this particular item from Mexico. But yes, you can find it in the United States on Etsy or Facebook, Instagram, different suppliers. But this particular gemstone is from Mexico and that's it. You're not going to find it anywhere else.
Sharon: Wow. So, they sell it to people in the States here. You're in Canada right now. Do you have any idea where you'll settle with your jewelry? Will you continue to work in Canada or move again?
Gabriela: Right now, I’m in Canada because my husband is studying a master’s here. Our idea or the main objective is to stay here in Canada. We love this city, Montreal. We have been here every year since four years ago. We love the culture, we love the weather, we love all the activities that are here.
The main thing that we love here is that we can see the difference between seasons. In Mexico, it's not that easy to see the difference between seasons. Mexico has very good weather. I'm not saying that. It’s just that you can’t differentiate between seasons, because mainly the entire year is the same temperature. It doesn't change a lot. But yeah, we want to stay here. We'll see. I hope we can stay here.
Sharon: As the seasons change the way you mentioned it, do they influence the stones? Do you make different kinds of jewelry in winter than in summer?
Gabriela: Yes, for sure. Right now, I haven't created new collections here because I just recently found a studio to work. I found it last October. I started to create collections a year ago when I was in Mexico, and I created three because of the change of seasons. Depending on the seasons, I try to look for particular colors of the gemstones. Maybe because it's summer, I'm looking for more vibrant colors. In autumn it’s more earth colors.
Also, when it's winter in Mexico, I try to make smaller earrings instead of bigger because during winter you are wearing scarves. In my mind it’s easier to wear smaller ones than big ones during winter.
Sharon: How do you introduce yourself? Do you introduce yourself as a jewelry designer? How do you describe yourself?
Gabriela: I always introduce myself as a jewelry maker, even though I also think I'm a jewelry designer. I think they go hand in hand. I think recently, in the last year and a half, I felt comfortable introducing myself as a jewelry designer.
Sharon: Jewelry designer, okay. What do you consider a collection? Is it the colors? Is it a number of pieces? What is a collection made of?
Gabriela: The collection that I created last year was my first one. So, for me, collection was a seasonal collection. I try to focus on the seasonal relevance at that particular time. I was inspired by the things during that particular season. For example, the one I created during summer was the candy collection. I created a collection of earrings resembling candies because they had vibrant colors, big statement earrings.
Sharon: When do you make those? It must be hard in winter to be thinking about summer jewelry, or in summer to be thinking about winter jewelry. That's when you're making the collection, right? Not in the season, but before the season.
Gabriela: Yeah, a little bit before. Just a little bit. I will admit that I’m not super organized. Sometimes I start making the rings or the collections just a couple of weeks before, so I’m seeing them in the middle of the season.
Sharon: So, it's right before. What are you designing now? What colors are you thinking about now as spring is going into summer? I don't know how it is in Montreal, but here it's really spring. If it started snowing, would you think of different colors? If you're already working on the spring collection and suddenly it starts snowing, for instance.
Gabriela: I'm a little bit behind, actually. I haven't finished the series of rings that I mentioned before, and for those rings the concept is winter. Right now I’m working with those. But at the same time in Mexico, Samantha is working on a collection for the web page with pieces that can be replicated. She's working with bold colors because spring is coming. We're working on new designs.
Actually, this week, she is making some prototypes that I just made. I need to see them and approve them in order to continue with the real production for these pieces. But they're going to be with bold colors. We are both working with glass and some jaspers, and also with carbon quartz.
Sharon: This is for production, but what were you describing by saying that you don't have a lot of inventory? That it’s one of a kind?
Gabriela: Well, we don't have a lot of inventory. The pieces that you see on our website are the pieces that we have in stock, and that's it. But those pieces that are not part of the one of a kind section, we can replicate them. The ones you are seeing on our web page are the ones we have available at the moment. If a client buys this piece right now, I need to make a new one in order to sell this new piece.
Sharon: Do you ever reject a prototype and say, “I decided I don't want green. I want red in it”? You reject the prototype, you’re saying yes.
Gabriela: Yeah. If I don't like it, yes, of course. I just reject it and try again. I iterate a lot until I find the right combination, the right size, the right color, everything.
Sharon: What do you mean by slow made? I've heard the term, but how do you define it?
Gabriela: For me, slow made is quality over quantity. It's attention to detail. Pieces are made to order, as I mentioned before. We don’t carry excessive inventory. We take our time to create each piece and to see that every piece is made at the right quality. Everything needs to be on point.
We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Terhi Tolvanen
Currently based in the French countryside, Terhi Tolvanen was born in Helsinki, Finland (1968). Following studies at the Lahti Design Institute, Finland, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, NL, Tolvanen earned a Master’s Degree in Jewelry at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, NL.
Tolvanen’s works can be found in numerous distinguished private and public collections worldwide, including the Swiss National Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK) the Dallas Museum of Art (TX- USA) among others.
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com:
Additional Resources
Transcript:
Terhi Tolvanen’s jewelry isn’t made of gold or diamonds, but in its own way, it’s just as precious. The Finnish jeweler uses natural materials like wood, raw minerals and shells to create jewelry that not only looks beautiful, but challenges viewers to reflect on the world around them. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how her daily walks shape her work; how living in Amsterdam and rural France have changed her jewelry over the years; and her advice for emerging artists. Read the episode transcript here.
Welcome to the Jewelry Journey, exploring the hidden world of art around you. Because every piece of art has a story, and jewelry is no exception.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com.
We're so glad you're here today. I'd never heard of our guest, Terhi Tolvanen, before. I don't know how I missed her jewelry because I like large, statement-type pieces, and that's what many of Terhi's pieces are. I was really taken with them. Welcome back.
So, it’s finding things in nature that you put together in what you call a sculpture.
Terhi: Yeah, sculpture, jewelry. I do really make jewelry, but it's also all these wonderful materials that I manage to find. I'm also talking about, for example, light and movement. How do the trees, for example, move in the wind? This can be a big inspiration. Or an early summer rain, which gives a certain kind of light and color to things. I also have very many pieces where I'm talking about the metamorphosis of a flower, opening and being in full flower and then in the end fading away. The circle of life.
I'm very fond of moss also, which I find very beautiful. It also talks about time because moss is growing very slowly, and it takes over places that have not been really taken care of. What is taken care of? There are cultures, like in Japan, where they think moss is very important and beautiful. They pour sour milk over stone so that moss would grow better. Whereas in Europe the moss is taken away. They have pieces where, for example, it's a moss collection. I made my own moss, or I make my own mushrooms, which are also very fascinating.
Sharon: So, nature is where you get most of your inspiration from. From the things around you that other people might overlook?
Terhi: Yes, it's that. Yes, I think so. The starting point is a little bit in this experience that I had when I moved to Amsterdam. In Finland, it's so normal for everybody to have nature around, and it's so very normal to go to the forest and to be able to pick berries and mushrooms and walk around. When I moved to Amsterdam, I realized that this is not at all the case over there. Everything is planted. Nothing is wild. Even the forest is planted, and you should not touch anything. So, the nature experience is totally, totally different. This was not really shocking to me, but I found it very interesting at the time.
I think it’s really a human need to be in touch with nature, and in a city situation, it starts on the balconies. The very first pieces I made after school were about flowerpots and balconies where people are creating their own nature spaces in a mini way. I found that very interesting. When one has a little bit more space, this becomes a garden, and there are all different kinds of gardens, very well taken care of or very wild gardens.
I'm also very fond of all different garden wood. The best material for me is, for example, this curly hazelnut that has been pruned for many years, which makes it curl even more. This human interaction has been there already long before I get to this material in my hands. There are all kinds of fascinating situations with these thoughts.
Sharon: Are people surprised when they look at your work, like, “What is this? This isn't jewelry. There’s no diamonds or gold.” What is their reaction?
Terhi: Yeah, sometimes. I don't have so many new people around that I get to hear this kind of remark. But yeah, sometimes it happens like, “Really? It's very big and it must be very heavy.” They find it very strange that branches can make a necklace. I have the feeling that the big question is “But where is the value?” It’s easier to see the value when it's precious metal and shiny stones.
Sharon: How do you introduce yourself to people who don't know you? If people ask what you do, what do you tell them?
Terhi: I say I'm a jewelry artist, and then I have to explain. I say I’m a jewelry artist making contemporary jewelry because there are so many different types of jewelry. I have to explain that I'm selling my work through galleries and that there are collectors and museums buying, like it was any other art discipline like painting or sculpture. This explains the best, I think, the way I do work.
Otherwise, a remark I get very often is, “The Christmas market is very nice in that little town. Maybe this would be interesting for you.” Then I have to explain that I don't make pieces in series. My pieces are always unique pieces. I make some variations, but I never really copy a piece. There are some exceptions to the rule, but I haven't done it many times.
Sharon: You’re in many prestigious museums around the world. That must give you a lot of credibility when you're talking to people.
Terhi: Yes, of course. This is really fantastic, that my work is valued. It's very good for motivation, and, of course, it gives status. It's fantastic to be appreciated in my work. It's quite important. I would say it's very important for me, yes.
Sharon: It keeps you going. The first time a museum wanted to collect your work, did they come to you? Did they see it at a show? What happened?
Terhi: The museums and collectors are buying from the galleries, so I am not in direct contact with them. With the years, I have gotten to meet some of my collectors. I have quite a few in the U.S., and this is very far away. So, there are some I have never met in person. I would say I’ve met more in Europe at the openings. It's very nice and important to be there for my own openings and especially to meet people.
Sharon: Were you excited or inspired when you heard the museum bought your first piece or your second piece? Did it keep you going?
Terhi: Yes, absolutely. Yes. I have quite a good list now. I have a couple of museums I would like to have my pieces also, so I still have work to do.
Sharon: You mentioned that you're very busy in the studio right now. What are you working on?
Terhi: Yes, I'm always very busy. The whole year is a rhythm with solo exhibitions. For quite some years now, there’s a solo exhibition in one of my galleries every year. Then I have galleries that go regularly to fairs, and I try to have some new pieces for them. Right now, I'm finishing pieces for the Pearl Exhibition at Noel Guyomarc'h in Montreal. The Pearl Exhibition is touring now in several galleries, and then each gallery is asking other artists to participate. Noel asked me, among others. Then I'm also preparing some pieces for an art fair in Amsterdam. I'm also almost done with a customer order from Ornamentum Gallery.
Sharon: Would you say the market for jewelry is growing in France, or is it remaining stable?
Terhi: Well, it's quite stable, I would say, for quite some time now, which means in practice that I can't really work with any new galleries on a steady basis. I do participate in group exhibitions, of course, but I have four galleries now that I work with, and they wait all the time for new pieces. So, I'm full in work all the time.
Sharon: That’s a nice position to be in. At what point do the stones talk to you to say, “I'm going to be a necklace,” or I should be a ring or a bracelet”?
Terhi: Yeah, absolutely the materials talk to me. I'm a very materialistic maker in that sense. The materials are extremely important for me. This was already the case from the beginning. I'm only getting better in it, I think, and a little bit quicker. The way it goes is that I often let the wood—the branches that have certain shapes, I let them decide what shape the necklace would be. They tell me how they would be. There is a way in this puzzle work that when they are arranged in the best way, they also talk about movement or waves or so on.
The same thing with stones. For example, when I have a mineral, I carefully choose which side of this mineral I show, which is the front side, because there are differences. The back side is maybe not so nice. The color is maybe better from a certain angle. A lot also decides where I need to place the stones. For example, labradorite is very dependent on the light falling on the stone. When it is looked at from a certain direction, it gives this very strong blue and green light in the stone.
This is why I turn them around. Because jewelry pieces are three dimensional when they’re worn, I'm making my pieces on the mannequin. When I'm moving around my mannequin, I’m taking care that the stones are having light from all sides of the piece. It cannot be only from the front because a jewelry piece is never looked at only from the front.
I let the material decide a lot. With time I have learned to see. I'm really looking for certain qualities in the material. There are certain stones that absolutely need to be a ring because the stone is the most beautiful or spectacular or gives its best when it’s placed on the hand, where one can look at it and turn it around a little bit.
Sharon: Now, you've been doing this for about 20 years at least. What would you say to people who are just starting out? What would you tell emerging artists?
Terhi: I would tell them that when making, they have to give all the love they have to their work. This means that one needs to try to do his or her best every time because one cannot cheat on that. When you put all your soul and all the love you have into your piece, then it becomes a good piece. Love means it’s a good work because all artists are responsible for the quality of their work. In today's world, where there are so many objects, so many things that we don't need, what justifies the fact that art needs to exist? We have to do our best to make only really good pieces. This is possible when you give a lot of love. How do I know if my piece is ready and good? I, myself, find the piece really having a presence.
Sharon: So, that's what emerging artists or all artists should work towards.
Terhi: Yes, I think this is very important. With time, when they manage to concentrate on this question, at the same time, the technical skills and everything around it will develop as well.
Sharon: Well, thank you very much for talking with us today, Terhi. I hope we have a chance to do it again in the future.
Terhi: Thank you so much, Sharon, for having me. It was great.
Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Terhi Tolvanen
Currently based in the French countryside, Terhi Tolvanen was born in Helsinki, Finland (1968). Following studies at the Lahti Design Institute, Finland, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, NL, Tolvanen earned a Master’s Degree in Jewelry at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, NL.
Tolvanen’s works can be found in numerous distinguished private and public collections worldwide, including the Swiss National Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK) the Dallas Museum of Art (TX- USA) among others.
Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com:
Additional Resources
Transcript:
Terhi Tolvanen’s jewelry isn’t made of gold or diamonds, but in its own way, it’s just as precious. The Finnish jeweler uses natural materials like wood, raw minerals and shells to create jewelry that not only looks beautiful, but challenges viewers to reflect on the world around them. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how her daily walks shape her work; how living in Amsterdam and rural France have changed her jewelry over the years; and her advice for emerging artists. Read the episode transcript here.
Welcome to the Jewelry Journey, exploring the hidden world of art around you. Because every piece of art has a story, and jewelry is no exception.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week. We're so glad you're here today.
I'd never heard of our guest, Terhi Tolvanen, before. I'll let her pronounce the name in Finnish. I don't know how I missed her jewelry because I like large, statement-type pieces, and that's what many of Terhi's pieces are. I was really taken with them. She uses a lot of materials found in nature, integrated with stones that we might see in other jewelry. Her work can be found in many prestigious museums around the world. She herself has studied in several countries, growing and perfecting her work. Today, we will learn a lot about Terhi and the inspiration and ideas you will find all around her. Welcome to the podcast, Terhi.
Terhi: Thank you so much, Sharon, for inviting me. It's great to be talking with you.
Sharon: I'm so glad that we have the chance to talk. Can you tell us why you moved from Finland to Amsterdam to France? Can you tell us how the materials varied in each area?
Terhi: I moved away from Finland. Originally, I was supposed to be going away for only one year, but after technical school, I was missing quite a lot to learn more about the reasons why to make things. At the time in Finland, there was no possibility to continue. That's why I started looking elsewhere.
I ended up then studying in Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, and I totally fell in love with the school. The one year I was supposed to stay became six years. After four years, I also did a master course over there, and after school I stayed because it was great. I fell in love with jewelry. There were galleries, there were events, there were colleagues, there were things happening. During the school years, I made a lot of friends, and I found a place to stay and all that. Now for about 10 years, I've been in France. I moved to France because of love. I fell in love.
Sharon: Love, okay. And did you find materials different in each area?
Terhi: The materials, yeah, of course. Moving to France has changed the accessibility to my materials totally, because I moved to the countryside from the city. This meant that I was able to use more and more branches that I could collect and find a little bit everywhere. And I’ve continued what I started doing already in the Netherlands for finding all my minerals and stones. I would go to mineral fairs. Now that I'm in France, I go to Paris.
Sharon: Are there are a lot of materials in Paris? Do you find things to work with?
Terhi: There is a quite good mineral fair once a year, in the beginning of December. I almost always have to wait one year if I want to have something or find the same thing again or find new material. When I do that, I have to count that I have enough for working for one year. I buy a lot and I don't always use everything. Sometimes it can even take up to five years before I really know what I want to do with certain minerals, but this is always very exciting for me. I'm a very big fan of minerals and stones in any shape and color and format.
I have used a lot of rough minerals that I would cut just a little bit so that the dimensions would fit on a piece. For about three or four years, I've also been buying some cut stones. When I still lived in Amsterdam, I used to work with a stone cutter who would cut stones especially for me, and that was a very good cooperation. Since then, he has stopped working a little bit in that way. But he would save me things the normal goldsmiths wouldn't want to buy. He learned very quickly that was interesting for me. Mainly it was things that were a little bit different, a little bit less perfect than a traditional goldsmith would want to use.
Sharon: How long have you been a maker? Did you choose it later or did you choose it when you were young?
Terhi: I have been a maker since my graduation from the Sandberg Instituut. The master course in Amsterdam is called Sandberg Instituut. I graduated from there in 1999, and I had my first solo show in 2000. Of course, it took a little time to get going. But now it's 24 years ago. It’s long.
Sharon: And you knew when you graduated that you wanted to be a maker or a jeweler. That's what you wanted to do professionally.
Terhi: Yes. I was asking this question a lot while studying. When I started studying in Amsterdam, I was absolutely convinced that I don't want to be an artist and I don't want to make jewelry. But I thought, “Never mind. I will be able to learn a lot of important things anyway at school.” This meant that during a lot of school years, I was trying all kinds of different things. I was drawing a lot, I was making objects, I was working a lot with textiles, sort of half- clothes, half-sculpture pieces.
And then at one moment towards the end of the master course, when it really became a reality that soon I will have to get out of the school and go into the real world, I really decided, “Okay, I will make jewelry,” because my conclusion, after all these school years, was that that's the thing I can do the best. So, I really chose it. Also, because of the situation at the time in the Netherlands, it was possible to ask for working grants for jewelry arts. I had some very good school friends that were very much encouraging me to take the jewelry direction. So, yes, it was a very conscious decision at the time, and I have not regretted it.
Sharon: It was long periods when you were in a country. You said you were in Amsterdam for six years. Did you teach? I don't know, maybe I have that wrong.
Terhi: No, not there. I was there for school for six years altogether. Also, I stayed for the reason that it was cheaper to work at school than rent a studio. When I graduated from the Instituut, I stayed in Amsterdam because it was, work wise, very exciting to stay there. I had a job on the site. Then later I got a working grant. I had a nice studio, so I stayed in Amsterdam until 2013 when I moved to France.
Sharon: I have to ask if you knew the languages before you came to each country. Well, English in Amsterdam works. What languages do you speak?
Terhi: I'm multilingual. in Amsterdam I decided that I would like to learn Dutch because I thought it is very important for the quality of life. I managed to learn Dutch, so I speak Dutch quite fluently. At school it was a lot in English, of course. I speak Finnish, Dutch, English, and now in France, people don't speak so much English, so I really had to learn French. I had already studied French during all my school time in Finland, so I had a base for that, but I couldn't speak it so well. Now, of course, with all the years, I have learned to speak French. I'm teaching now in France at ENSAD Limoges, the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art et de Design, which is one of the national art schools. I'm teaching in French.
Sharon: As you learned each language, did your works change? Did it make it easier to work or harder? Did you see a change in your work?
Terhi: Well, living abroad, it's often lost in translation, of course. To know a language very well, you need to also understand the mentality and the culture of each country. I don't know if it's so much the language that's influencing the work. It's more the physical fact being in a certain place with certain surroundings. Of course, for me nature is very important. It's a richness, the language is. Definitely, yes.
Sharon: Your most recent exhibition, I don't know if you had another one since then, but last summer you were at Ornamentum Gallery. Your work was shown at Ornamentum Gallery, which is in Massachusetts, I think.
Terhi: It’s in Hudson, New York.
Sharon: Okay. I couldn't remember. Hudson, New York. The exhibit was called Moderate to Southwest Winds. What does that mean in jewelry? What did you think it meant?
Terhi: I chose the title. It's a weather forecast. It's taken out of a weather forecast. I chose that because while working for that show, I realized that what is really making the rhythm of my work and my thinking is the weather. I go out every morning for a walk, and this is a very important moment for me depending on the face in the work. Either I try to just empty my mind and observe things in nature. I look at colors and light and shapes and textures. Or, when I'm a little bit further in the work, then the moment of walking is very nice for finding solutions, so I'm working in my head.
And, of course, what is then very important is the weather. If it's nice weather, if the sun is shining, if it's raining, if it's the spring or the winter. In wintertime, there is not so much light, so I have to wait for the light to be able to go out. This is totally deciding the rhythm of my day. As I also wrote at the time for the text of the exhibition, all my life I've been following the weather forecast. I check every morning what kind of weather it's going to be. I plan my day. If it's raining in the morning, I will go and do my walk in the afternoon and so on. This is something that I learned from my grandfather in Finland who had a little summer cottage on a little island. It's important to know what kind of weather it is, if it was safe to take the boat to the mainland or not. This is a kind of habit. It's sort of a daily ritual for me.
I was also thinking that as the weather is the factor that is so important, I can also say that what was a little bit different for this exhibition was that the theme was a little bit more general. I let myself have the freedom of not deciding so tightly the theme that I'm working on. During COVID, I had put aside all kinds of different plans, all kinds of pieces that I wanted to make but I was not able to make at the time. I also had some materials that they had put on the site especially for the show at Ornamentum. I decided to make the show in that way, that I will make all these pieces that were waiting to be made. I found that, like the weather, the circumstances of the situation led to that conclusion somewhat and what I could say.
Sharon: How did COVID affect you and your work?
Terhi: I found it a very, very difficult time. I didn't stop working totally, but I was not able to really make my big pieces. It was quite military like, I would say. How to explain? The French system was very strict. To go out, you had to sign a paper and you had to tell what you were going to do, and you had one hour to do that. If you would not be back at home on time, then you would get fined. There was a very efficient fear campaign on television and so on.
It felt very uncertain, and I'm sure this was the case for everybody. It took away a lot of the safe feeling which is necessary to be able to really dive into a big work. In a way, the time was cut in small moments when it was possible to create. Ever since I started working, I think the COVID year was really the first year that I didn't have so much production.
Sharon: Were you allowed to go out to your studio? Is your studio in your home or is it separate?
Terhi: At the time, I had a studio in a little town close to home. When they announced that the lockdown is going to come, I moved the most important things from my studio to my home so then I didn't have to go. This would have been possible. I could have signed the paper and said, “I’m going to my work,” but I felt better working at home. Also, being in the countryside, it was more free to go out. It was an isolated house at the time. I have moved since, but it was much easier to be there than in a city situation. I'm glad I did it. I moved my goldsmithing bench and my main tools and my main materials.
Sharon: You moved them home?
Terhi: Yeah, I had a little room at home to be able to work.
Sharon: What did you want them to learn from the exhibition? Let's say your show at Ornamentum was the first time they were seeing your work or contemporary jewelry. What did you want them to learn by looking at it?
Terhi: I'm very concerned about wearability in my work. This gives the scale. For somebody who is not so acquainted with contemporary jewelry, a lot of times people find it very big. I like to say that my work is sculpture. Then one could say that it's wearable sculpture.
I'm also, first of all, talking about nature since the beginning. I'm working on the same theme in a way for about 20 years. I never changed because there are always new things. What I want to really put in the front—this is a little bit of a French saying, sorry—is that nature is very precious, and there are a lot of very beautiful things to see. How to put it very simply? I just want to show that it's very special. There are a lot of little things you can see when one walks in the forest. It’s worthwhile to really look.
This sounds a little bit like no explanation because there are so many factors. But I'm talking about a dialog between man and nature. I'm talking about respect towards nature. I'm talking about this kind of eagerness to control nature, and the nature is fighting back so this dialog is never ending. Of course, today this is a topic that is more actual than ever. There are so many wonderful things. It's amazing, I think. I mean, just the mineral world. It's amazing what nature can make.
Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Suzanne Martinez
Suzanne Martinez is the co-owner of Lang Antiques, a San Francisco-based shop that offers the largest collection of fine vintage engagement rings and antique jewels to be found under one roof. She is a highly credentialed senior gemologist, jewelry appraiser, jewelry historian and the curator for Lang’s collection. She actively buys from sellers all over the world. Suzanne is also the founder of Lang’s Antique Jewelry University.
Suzanne started collecting rocks and minerals as a child, and by the time she was 13 knew that the jewelry world was her passion. For fun she makes enameled jewelry and studies natural history and Latin American cultural anthropology.
Images courtesy of Lang Antique & Estate Jewelry available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Additional resources:
Lang Antique and Estate Jewelry is the prime destination for vintage jewelry lovers, but you don’t have to be in San Francisco to take advantage of the store’s services. Lang ships jewelry globally and offers Antique Jewelry University, a completely free online guide to maker’s marks and jewelry history. Jewelry historian and Lang co-owner Suzanne Martinez joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how Lang curates its huge collection of antique engagement rings; the history of Antique Jewelry University; and what she looks for when evaluating an antique piece. Read the episode transcript here.
Welcome to the Jewelry Journey, exploring the hidden world of art around you. Because every piece of art has a story, and jewelry is no exception.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com. Today, we're talking with Suzanne Martinez of Lang Antiques in San Francisco. Welcome back.
Do you manufacture yourselves? Does Lang manufacture?
Suzanne: We have what we call our Lange line. Sometimes a piece of jewelry will come in and it's worn out. It doesn't have another livelihood, so we can't guarantee it to a customer. I'm talking about a ring in particular. We have, probably for more than 20 years, been making hand-fabricated rings that are in the style of or influenced by a real ring design. They're very similar to the older pieces, and we hand fabricate them.
In the last few years, we've had a greater demand. People don't want to pay for the cost of having a ring hand fabricated like the originals. It's very expensive when a mounting costs more than the diamond you're setting in it, and that's not unusual. So, we have done some work with partners that do CAD that have helped us create our designs in CAD, but we do very little of that. 90% of what we do, if we're going to take an old stone and remake a ring out of it, is hand fabricated. We try and stick to the tenets of the old jewelry that we sell.
Sharon: Do people come in and say, “Can you repolish this stone?” Maybe they have an old ring, a vintage ring, and the stone is beat up but they want it repolished.
Suzanne: That's a really good question. The stones that get beat up are things that are not a diamond. You have to be pretty hard on a diamond to beat it up or to chip it. But sapphires, if they've been worn for 15, 20 years even, they're going to have some abrasions on them. When we buy a piece of jewelry, that’s one of the things we do. We will remove those stones and repolish them before we resell them.
But as far as a customer coming in with their own personal collection, we don't have an in-house lapidary, so we don't do that. There are people that specialize in and help people refurbish like that, but it's not something we offer because we don't do it in-house.
Sharon: Was your business affected by COVID?
Suzanne: It was actually positively affected. I think people had more time. We know they had more time at home, and I think people did a lot more screen time. We had a lot more visitors to our website, and people got very excited about antique jewelry, especially colored stones and things they could wear on a Zoom call so people could see their jewelry, like a pair of earrings or a pendant. Business increased because of that, which was very good. I think the awareness grew. People found out about antique jewelry more. Look at Instagram. Instagram is different than it was three years ago, but there were a lot of people spending a lot of time on Instagram and other social media and just watching, because it's eye candy. People come to our website for the same reason. Who doesn't like to look at beautiful jewelry?
I just told this story to a customer that came in yesterday. It just came to mind. We used to keep our jewelry in our window. We used to have probably a thousand pieces in the window, tons of jewelry just packed in. I'd watch people walk by. They'd stop in the window, and then they'd walk away with a big smile on their face because jewelry makes people happy. It's beautiful. I think people gained an appreciation during that time period.
Sharon: Did you see an increase in sales because people didn't have things to spend the money on?
Suzanne: Well, they weren't traveling. They weren't going out to eat, so they were buying jewelry. We were lucky because part of our business is an e-commerce business, and it's something we've done for a long time. I think some of the jewelers that didn't have that ability to interact with their clients in the same way probably didn't gain from it. But it was good for our business.
Sharon: When you had a thousand pieces or a lot of jewelry in the window, did you take it out every night?
Suzanne: Oh yeah, every single piece. We had our windows designed so they were modular, so you could take a whole tray of jewelry out and put it on carts and take it to our walls to sell it. We made it work because if you had to take out one at a time, that would take you another couple of hours.
Sharon: Do you have local people, people in San Francisco or in Northern California, who come to the store just to look at the window or to look and see what's new?
Suzanne: It's really interesting, because when people come into our store, they're either going to have an appointment or we're a destination. They know who we are before they come. They might be coming to see what's new. They might be coming because they have a particular piece of jewelry they want to look at, and sometimes it's just part of their trip to San Francisco. They always come to Lang.
Sharon: Do you sell things besides rings, or is it all rings or mostly rings?
Suzanne: No, I would say rings are probably half of what we sell, colored stone and diamond rings, then all other kinds of jewelry. People wear brooches still, believe it or not. We sell a lot of pins and brooches. You don't see people wearing them as much, but we're bringing that back. We like them. They're beautiful, small forms of art, you know?
Sharon: I was intrigued because you used the word collectors. I looked at the store and it was all rings. As I was scrolling through, it seemed like one on every two pages was something that wasn't a ring.
Suzanne: Well, you have to filter, just like any website you're on. We have filters set up so that you can choose how you look at different jewelry. If you want to look at rings, if you want to dive in and just look at sapphire rings, if you want to look at Art Deco sapphire rings, you can do all of those things. You can look at all of our jewelry in one page, which is a few thousand pieces that are online. That's kind of an ominous task. So, filtering is a good way to use our website to find what you're looking for, or just to look. Like I said, it's eye candy.
Sharon: How often do you get things that might not be a ring that you would put on the website or people come to the store to see?
Suzanne: If you watch our What's New page, you'll see that we sell more things and post more things that are not rings. Rings are maybe 30 to 40% of what we put on our website. There are pendants, earrings, brooches, necklaces, a little bit of everything.
Sharon: In reading the description of your store, that it’s world renowned, it seems like you have everything related to vintage engagement rings or vintage rings.
Suzanne: That is what we're known for. We have over 800 diamond rings. That's a large collection of vintage diamond rings. We've curated our collection very carefully over the years. People buy from Lang because all of our rings have been fully restored. For example, the prongs are not worn down anymore. We will replace and put new prongs on the ring. If the diamond has a small chip, we remove the diamond and we'll repair the chip before we put it back in. All of our diamonds of one carat or larger, we send to the GIA for a lab report. We do a lot of work to make sure that the ring we're selling has all the necessary information for a customer to make a decision on whether they want to buy it.
When you look at an antique diamond, it has a different kind of beauty than a modern round brilliant. Most antique diamonds have a little bit of color to them. They are a J or a K color very commonly, and you have to kind of throw out the standard of the modern round brilliant-cut because you can't compare them. An old diamond has a different way of reacting with light. It breaks the light up into spectral colors more. It's just a playful, beautiful diamond, so it doesn't look like every other round brilliant-cut diamond. Each one is hand cut and unique. To me, that's a starting point of what makes an antique ring so special.
Then you get the way that the ring is manufactured. They're hand fabricated, and die striking is a very high-quality way of making a ring. It started because platinum was an expensive metal in the past. Now its price per ounce is less than gold. It's still harder to work in, but it was always the most expensive metal. It was always 10 times the cost of gold. Because of this, up until 1920, there were no white metals other than silver. White gold hadn't been patented. It was patented probably in 1918, 1919, but it didn't get into manufacturing techniques until 1920. If you see somebody that says it's a Victorian piece of jewelry and it's white gold, that is the wrong description. There is no way. There was no white gold manufacturing in the 19th century. 1920 is the demarcating line.
After that, they were able to offer white metal jewelry, which was popular in Art Deco, black and white jewelry. This could be offered to people because they were die striking white gold instead of hand fabricating platinum. It still was a high-quality product, but they were using the less expensive white gold versus the platinum. It also justified using a quarter carat diamond, whereas to hand fabricate a platinum ring with a quarter carat, you don't see that. Well, of what survived. That would be a rarity, to see something under a half carat.
Sharon: Do you have to explain this to a couple that comes in looking for a ring with a modern diamond that was a third of the price or half the price?
Suzanne: Usually, people that are already interested in vintage and antique, older rings, they're coming for a different reason. They've already decided this is what they want. They're not saying, “Well, why shouldn't I buy a round brilliant-cut diamond?” But we answer all their questions, and not everybody needs to do a deep dive. If you're someone who has no background in the jewelry business, to tell them about 1920 and die striking and all that, that may be a little too much information for them. We have it and we're there to give it to them, but we let the customer guide their own journey and ask the questions. We find it's a lot easier for them to manage. Does that make sense?
Sharon: Yeah.
Suzanne: And just to clarify another thing, the man doesn't come in and buy the ring that often. The man and the woman come in together. It's very common for that. And we have women coming in together and men coming in together. We have all kinds of couples that are buying antique and vintage jewelry.
Sharon: I know how detailed it can be to look at a vintage and everything you're talking about. I can see myself saying, “Enough already. That's all I need to know.”
So, you're a jewelry historian. The Antique Jewelry University was already somewhat started by Christie Romero, but what motivated you to continue to develop it into such an in-depth resource?
Suzanne: Something that I have always done for myself personally, for my staff, with the GIA alumni, it's all continuing education. Whenever I go to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, I go to as many educational presentations as possible. I've been involved with the GIA Alumni for over 30 years. We bring speakers to our local chapter and continue their education and elevate people so they know more. There are so many topics as far as jewelry is concerned that it's just fascinating. You have gem cutters, you have people that manufacture, you have jewelers. What's your design process? There are so many ways to learn. We have miners that come and speak to us and talk about their journey into the earth and how they extract certain kinds of gems. That's just barely scratching the surface.
Continuing education is so important to me personally. In order for me to buy jewelry and understand it, I had to learn. How is anyone else going to understand my process so they are confident to buy from Lang? It's all part and parcel. It's all education. Someone comes in and, like you said, we do educate them to the degree that they want to be educated. All this information is free. Antique Jewelry University, we've never charged for it. We have more than one full-time staff person working on AJU every day. It's something that we do to give back to our community. It’s very important to me.
Sharon: How do you promote it? How do you let people know about it? Jewelry organizations I’ve been in, we know about it, but how do you let the larger world know it's available?
Suzanne: It's kind of an organic process. We share it with our customers in every way we can. I usually speak at least once a year. I'll speak somewhere, or I will go to a conference and set up a table. My partner in doing this is Starla Turner. We have a table, we'll bring different rings, we'll have a card on each ring and say, “Here's a loupe. Look at it, and this is what you're going to look for.” Then we have Antique Jewelry University running on a computer, and we have a big poster.
We want people to know about it, but most of the people that use it are in the trade. How do you educate somebody as to what they are buying? Is it authentic? That is a hard thing to do with the public because they don't have the basic knowledge to start with. So, Antique Jewelry University has many levels. You could be a novice and you just want to come in and find out when a piece was made. My grandmother gave me a locket. When do you think that locket was made? There's a place for you to find out that information. Then if you want to dive a little deeper, you can. What's the history of lockets?
Or someone who is a historian themselves, they might want to add to the knowledge they have, or share with us the knowledge they have to help us create a deeper knowledge base on a particular topic. Think of it as tiered information. We have people come to us, whether they’re shopping on our website, or they've found out about us through Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest and they want to find out more information, they go to Antique Jewelry University.
Sharon: Could I come to your store and have your staff look at a piece of jewelry and tell me what they think it is?
Suzanne: Absolutely. That's half the fun of coming to Lang. You get to really look at these pieces. It's kind of like a museum. You get to look at pieces and they’re for sale. You can touch them. You can have someone tell you about them. It's fun. It's really fun.
Sharon: Why did you continue it after Christie passed away?
Suzanne: Christie just did the timeline. That's what she started. I did the glossary of terms, and she gifted that to us before she died. We included that. I had already started the glossary. I met Christie. The two of us became friends. I call her one of my people. This is why you go to jewelry shows. This is why you go to gem shows. These are your people that understand and have the same passion that you do. She was very passionate. I was really grateful that she was in my life and that we had this part of our journey together.
Sharon: And you just continued adding to it when she wasn't available to do it.
Suzanne: Yeah. Christie passed about 20 years ago. We've been adding content to Antique Jewelry University since the day we started. I think it launched in 2020ish. That’s when we launched the website.
Sharon: Did you ever think it would be such a resource or so big?
Suzanne: Oh, no. It just kind of unfolded. At first it was just, how do you share a library? Let's just add some things so that people have a resource to find out about what they're buying. It was more for our customers. Then we realized there's a huge community out there, whether they're customers or not, and we all benefit from each other.
We're a community of people, and everyone that works at Lang is passionate about jewelry. I have gemologists on staff that are just—my friend Starla I was talking about, she's a black belt gemologist. We have Mary, who is an incredible historian that continues to write articles for Antique Jewelry University. The head of our marketing is Nicole Corsini, and she's a gemologist as well as, if you pick up the phone and want to talk to her about a piece of jewelry that you're interested in buying, she will tell you everything about it because she's got the history. She understands marketing and how to present information to you.
Everybody has something that they are special in as well as the passion. When you shop at Lang, you're shopping with passionate people that just love what they do. I'm very, very blessed to have all these people. It's a really special organization.
Sharon: It seems like it. I didn't know it was so extensive. I knew of Lang and the Antique Jewelry University, but I didn't realize it was so in-depth and extensive.
Suzanne, thank you for being here today. We really enjoyed it. We learned a lot. thank you very much.
Suzanne: It was my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you, Sharon.
Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Suzanne Martinez
Suzanne Martinez is the co-owner of Lang Antiques, a San Francisco-based shop that offers the largest collection of fine vintage engagement rings and antique jewels to be found under one roof. She is a highly credentialed senior gemologist, jewelry appraiser, jewelry historian and the curator for Lang’s collection. She actively buys from sellers all over the world. Suzanne is also the founder of Lang’s Antique Jewelry University.
Suzanne started collecting rocks and minerals as a child, and by the time she was 13 knew that the jewelry world was her passion. For fun she makes enameled jewelry and studies natural history and Latin American cultural anthropology.
Images courtesy of Lang Antique & Estate Jewelry available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Additional resources:
Lang Antique and Estate Jewelry is the prime destination for vintage jewelry lovers, but you don’t have to be in San Francisco to take advantage of the store’s services. Lang ships jewelry globally and offers Antique Jewelry University, a completely free online guide to maker’s marks and jewelry history. Jewelry historian and Lang co-owner Suzanne Martinez joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how Lang curates its huge collection of antique engagement rings; the history of Antique Jewelry University; and what she looks for when evaluating an antique piece. Read the episode transcript here.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week.
Today, we're talking with Suzanne Martinez of Lang Antiques in San Francisco. I should say that's where the brick and mortar is, but they sell all over the world. Lang Antiques is the country's, if not the world's, largest purveyor of vintage engagement rings. They have an unparalleled collection.
Suzanne herself is a jewelry historian, among other things. Lang Antiques has developed an online Antique Jewelry University. Researchers from all over the world use this as a resource to research the history of a piece of jewelry. If you're interested in jewelry, then this makes a very good read. I was looking at it last night again, and I didn't have any piece of jewelry in mind, but it was very interesting to read.
I’ve heard Suzanne give a talk at ASJRA, another major jewelry organization, and I’ve heard Suzanne give talks identifying a piece of jewelry, and she goes into tremendous detail. There's no way that you could not look at a piece of jewelry and know what you should be looking for. She'll tell us more about Antique Jewelry University. She'll also tell us how over the years, the store has become world renowned. They have done this by developing an unparalleled collection of jewelry, a reputation for professional expertise, and the longevity of this jewelry store. Suzanne, welcome to the program.
Suzanne: I'm happy to be here. Good morning.
Sharon: Can you tell us where the Lang in Lang Antiques and Estate Jewelry comes from?
Suzanne: We bought the store from Jarmilla Lang in 1991. She was the original owner of the store and a jewelry historian herself way before her time. She had worked in Europe in museums, so she had this breadth of knowledge of decorative arts and jewelry that she brought to San Francisco with her when she opened this store.
Sharon: Wow. There aren’t any certificates as a jewelry historian. It’s just knowledge, right? Knowledge and other people saying, “Well, you're a jewelry historian.” I presume you're a gemologist also. You look at so many rings. That’s very interesting.
What do you say to those who would never buy a piece of jewelry online because they have to feel it and see it and all of that?
Suzanne: Like you said, I am a gemologist and I have been for 45 years. Part of the gemological training is learning how to be forensic with what you’re looking at. Whether it's a gemstone or a piece of jewelry, if you are buying from someone who is knowledgeable enough to understand what they're looking at and share that information with you, that gives a huge degree of trust. I think that's one thing that stands out for Lang. We have a really good understanding of whether it’s a real piece of antique jewelry. How is it made? Why is this design important? Who else made this design popular over time and why? We like to give tidbits of history with every piece we sell.
I do call myself a jewelry historian, but by no means do I know everything. I have a library. I haven't read every single book in my library. However, if a piece comes in and I look at it, I know which book to look for to find a reference about it. And there are many jewelry historians that I look up to. It's a community.
Sharon: If I see a piece of jewelry on your website and I want to know more about it, or I want to know if I can trust this outfit If I don't know it, do I call you or send you the piece? Can you explain the process?
Suzanne: If you want to know more about your own piece of jewelry, that's why we have Antique Jewelry University. It's a place where you can do your own research. We have a huge database of hallmarks because one thing that we probably get the most inquiries about is, “Who made this piece of jewelry? Here's the mark I have.” We refer them to this database we have because it's pretty impressive.
Auction houses and appraisers and people all over use that database. Every piece of jewelry we have with a maker's mark, we do our best to research it. It’s not always easy. It’s not always possible. Then we photograph it, and we include it on our website. We try and add a little snippet about who the jeweler was, where they were located, and what years they did their manufacturing.
You have to match when a piece was made because some there are false marks, too. If a piece of jewelry is marked 585, which is the percentage for 14-karat gold, it was not made in the 19th century. They didn't mark jewelry like that. There is that forensic bit, too. Hopefully we can help people down that path. We call it the jewelry journey. We do. It’s finding out when their jewelry was made.
If they want to find out more about a piece of jewelry we have on our website that they might be interested in buying, we invite inquiries. We talk to them over the phone or by email, whatever they're comfortable with, and try and satisfy all their questions about it and add information as well.
Sharon: Did you develop the online Antique Jewelry University yourself?
Suzanne: When we started our website, that was back in 1998. We were kind of early adapters. There were no e-commerce platforms at that time, so we developed our own e-commerce platform. By the early 2000s, we were actually selling online. When we launched our website, Antique Jewelry University was a 1000-word glossary.
I had been collecting terms. Christie Romero was an incredible jewelry historian. She was here in Southern California, and she taught jewelry history. I don't remember which college it was down there, but she would put on symposiums and bring speakers in. Anyway, incredible woman. She started a glossary of terms and a timeline that, when she passed—unfortunately, she's no longer with us—she gifted to Antique Jewelry University. So, between her information and my glossary of terms, we started Antique Jewelry University and just built upon it.
Sharon: Do you continue to build upon it if you see a new term or something you haven't included before?
Suzanne: Absolutely. We are always researching. We have a woman who does a lot of our writing. Her name is Mary Borchert, and that is her job, just doing research. We have quite a library of reference books, so everything that we put on Antique Jewelry University is fully referenced. We notate that at the bottom of all our articles as well. We're not just copying it from somewhere else on the internet, which a lot of people do, and a lot of people copy Antique Jewelry University. That can be a compliment, but at the same time, we do all of our own work.
Sharon: That's impressive, considering how in-depth it is. Just look at it online. Why do you think that the interest in antique jewelry has grown so much in the past few years?
Suzanne: I think there's a lot of transparency. A lot of people are able to access information because of the advent of social media. Just think of all the people that are sharing their own personal information. We are on all the different social media channels as well, and I've seen them grow. If you have an interest in a particular type, like Art Nouveau jewelry, you can find Art Nouveau jewelers that have Instagram or Pinterest and look at beautiful jewelry and learn about it. In the past, when I started as a jeweler, if you didn't have a library, there was no place to go. You went to a museum, and that's where you found your information. Now I think it's a rich time for people to access information.
I think we also visually see antique and vintage jewelry worn on the red carpet, at the Met Gala, and we see jewelry that is inspired by antique jewelry. You have famous houses. Everybody knows who Cartier is. You have the most beautiful antique Cartier jewelry, and then you have people that have copied it. That's a big tribute, but you don't always know if it’s a Cartier or it isn’t. That's why it's important who you buy it from. But at the same time, it's permeated everything, antique and vintage styles. Whether it's somebody creating something new with a nod to something vintage or it's truly vintage, I think it's just what people see today. It's massive.
Sharon: Your selection of engagement rings is massive. Have you seen that grow in the past few years, the interest and the couples coming in and wanting to see your vintage only?
Suzanne: Because that's what we specialize in—we specialize in antique diamonds, so our vintage and antique jewelry is why people come to buy from us. They understand that it’s socially responsible, it’s recycled. That's one of the reasons they buy it. They also want a little bit of history. They want something that no one else has, something very unique. They want something that has a beautiful design and is executed in a way that jewelry isn't executed today. You get a beautiful Edwardian jewel, no one can make a piece of jewelry like that in today's world. They just don't. The jewelry today is made on CAD. Very few jewelers are hand fabricators or can fabricate something that delicate. If you want the real deal, you're going to shop at a store like Lang.
Sharon: What happens if you get a call from somebody outside of the U.S. or even on the other side of the U.S. that wants a piece? They want a vintage engagement ring, but they can't come to the store. What do you do?
Suzanne: Actually, more of our customers are outside of our store and shop just online because we have jewelry that no one else has. Where are they going to find it if they don't find it from a store like Lang? We have a very large selection. It's not unusual for a customer to narrow their choice down to two or three. Sometimes we just send them all three and they can try them on in the comfort of their own home. They have a period of time which they can return them. We make it work.
Sharon: I thought it was really interesting that you had that, the one, two, three. Maybe it's the person who writes about the antique jewelry. The one, two, three of what you look for to know more about a piece of jewelry. That was like first looking at the hallmarks. I looked at it last night but I don’t remember what’s next.
Suzanne: For a private individual, when they're trying to identify their own jewelry, style is really important. But for an individual, if you have family history and you know that piece was your grandmother's, at least you have a date within which to start. If you're just out in the world and you identify a piece of jewelry that you love but you don't really know how old it is, that's a little more difficult. How do you know it doesn't match the type of manufacturing techniques that were done when, say, an Art Nouveau piece of jewelry was made, versus something that is made today in the Art Nouveau style? That is something that's a little harder. That's why you need to rely on an appraiser, someone to help you with that.
But when I personally look at a piece of jewelry, how I select a piece of jewelry for our store, style is really important. Good design is always good design. Bad design is obvious, and it just doesn't make a great piece of jewelry. The techniques of manufacture have to be right. It has to be in excellent condition. There's a lot of things that I look at that go in the background, that not everybody sees when they look at a piece. They see a beautiful piece of jewelry when they're shopping, but the backstory is it has to be in excellent condition. It has to be correct.
Lang is very careful about letting people know when, for example, cufflinks have been out of style for quite some time, and a lot of the cufflinks that were made circa 1900 to 1930 are small. They're very small. They're really too small for men to wear. Men don't wear them, and they're very delicate. What we do is convert them to earrings. We make the most beautiful earrings out of these cufflinks that otherwise would lose their livelihood, and we've been very successful with doing that. But we tell people these were converted from a pair of earrings, whether it's Art Nouveau or an Art Deco cuff link. Those are the kinds of things that if we make a change, we tell people about it.
Sharon: If somebody wants to sell jewelry to you or to another place, let's say they take their family collection and show it to you, or they take it out of the safe deposit box and decide they want the jewelry to be out in the world, what do you say? Have you ever turned people away?
Suzanne: Absolutely. What if something was made in the last 25 years and its value is gold? It's something that is mass produced and there's lots and lots of them made and it's not in style anymore. It deserves to be recycled into something more beautiful again. In all pieces, it's back to that design, quality, authenticity and condition. Those are the things that I look for.
I wish I could say I could buy every single piece that comes through my door, but realistically we have a large collection. Let's say right now I have 30 hardstone cameos. If someone brought me a hardstone cameo today, I would have to make sure that it exceeded my current collection to add it to my collection, or it has to be something that I feel customers are buying right now.
The market goes up and down. Retro is a little soft right now. I like it. It's beautiful. The designs are gorgeous, but I'm not adding to our retro collection because we have a pretty extensive retro collection right now. Those are the kinds of things where sometimes I will say no. But usually individual, one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry, that's what we're looking for.
Sharon: Can you recognize if something is one of a kind when it’s presented to you? I know you think about things and what you have, but do you research the piece? Do you look at it under the microscope?
Suzanne: Some pieces definitely need to be researched, but most pieces are jewelry where maybe more than one of them has been made. In our diamond ring collection, for example, during the 1920s and 1930s, a lot of those rings were die struck. They were made in a die and many of them were made, but very few survive. In all my years of buying and selling vintage engagement rings and antique engagement rings, maybe I've seen a handful that were the same as one I had already seen.
That’s because the piece may be struck on a die, but then its hand pierced, its hand finished. There may be a garland or small milgrain, or it may have small diamonds added to it and this one doesn't have diamonds added to it. Each one has a handprint of a person on it, the work master or the person that does the engraving or the setter. Each one has its own imprint, so they still tend to look one of a kind. But knowing the underlying structure of something is still one of the ways we determine when it was made. You know when you see a die struck ring, that's the period of time within which it was made.
Sharon: Do people bring lab-grown diamonds in? I know they're not vintage, but do you ever see lab-grown diamonds?
Suzanne: I think the secondary market for lab grown diamonds hasn’t really hit yet because they've only been super popular in the marketplace for three years. That's about it. And their prices have already plummeted on the retail marketplace. It’s not something we would ever buy because they’re not old, but it is something that we have to be careful of, and I think people have to be careful of. I have heard of jewelers that are buying low quality synthetic diamonds. They're buying a round brilliant and they’re recutting it to European standard because they have inclusions and might have some off color, then they're putting them in an old mounting. People that buy scrap end up with lots and lots of mountings, and sometimes they just resell them on the secondary market through dealers. So, here you have the possibility of someone setting a synthetic diamond recut as an antique diamond into an old mounting, so buyer beware.
That's one of my dilemmas, too, that I have to be very careful about. I would never want to buy that. That's when the microscope comes in handy, and that's when we use outside laboratories like the Gemological Institute of America to check the stones before we buy them, just to make sure they are correct. In our laboratory, we don't have all the equipment necessary to confirm that it is 100% synthetic or not. We have separation techniques, but a larger laboratory is able to do a lot more than we can.
Sharon: A lot of these lab-grown diamonds have inscriptions and numbers or something that identifies it. Do you look for anything like that?
Suzanne: If the GIA has looked at that diamond, they always inscribe them. But a diamond cutter can polish that off in a matter of 10 minutes. If you do see it, great, but it's not something that we've even seen. We don't buy round brilliant-cut diamonds. We've never bought round brilliant-cut diamonds. That's not what we buy and sell. Because we specialize in the older ones, like I said, I'm very careful about what I buy and I'm on the lookout for these supposed recuts.
We know they're out there for smaller diamonds because we see them in reproductions, the European cuts and single cuts. Primarily the European cuts are cut with what we call an open culet. Instead of coming to a point on the bottom, they have a facet there, and the facets in the contemporary cuts for small diamonds have a really big open facet. That's a generalization, but it's one of those things. If you see all the other characteristics that make you think it's not an old ring and you see those stones and they're perfectly calibrated, you can kind of say, “Yes, that's a reproduction, and this is why.”
Sharon: Do you or people who work at the store go out to trade shows or antique jewelry shows and look for merchandise to resell?
Suzanne: That's one of the things I do. Most of the jewelry that we buy and sell comes right in our door. People send me a picture of it and we strike up a conversation, and they mail it to us or send it FedEx or however we decide they're going to ship it for our consideration so we can see it in person. I do not buy anything unless I see it in person.
Another really good reason to go to trade shows is to do price research. I go to Tucson Gem and Mineral Show every year because the prices and availability of different gems change. It changes from year to year, and if you're buying a beautiful old sapphire, you want to make sure you're paying the right price for it, especially today as prices have gone up significantly, especially in emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
About Lionel Geneste
Lionel Geneste is a fashion and luxury industry veteran, having worked for John Hardy, Givenchy, Catherine Malandrino and Randolph Duke in various capacities, from global marketing to communications and merchandising. He is also the founder of the gift-giving service b.Sophisticated.
Born in Tehran to French parents, Geneste grew up as a modern nomad: Cairo, Istanbul, Lagos, Beirut, Paris are just a few places he once called home. And so he acquired an eclectic eye, at an early age, for the refined and urbane—only further encouraged by his clotheshorse mother and her like-minded friends.
Additional Resources
Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com
Transcript:
How does an independent jewelry brand get noticed? For some lucky jewelers, the secret is Lionel Geneste. Lionel is a jewelry strategist and advisor who has launched iconic brands, shown new collections at Paris couture week, and gotten small jewelry artists into top stores. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how the jewelry industry compares to the fashion industry; the trends, opportunities and challenges jewelers are facing today; and how he chooses his clients (and why he has to believe in their work). Read the episode transcript here.
Welcome to the Jewelry Journey, exploring the hidden world of art around you. Because every piece of art has a story, and jewelry is no exception.
Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com.
Today, I'm talking with Lionel Geneste. He's an independent strategist in the jewelry industry. He does this after 15 years in fashion, so he knows fashion and jewelry. Welcome back.
Let’s say people haven't seen the lines of these jewels or the independent jewelers that you represent. Do they say, “Oh, I haven't seen this. I want it for my store”?
Lionel: Right. They do that. Everybody has access to everything pretty much now, with Instagram or even stores posting on their websites. I tend to have a collection or a certain number of pieces with me, and then I distribute it amongst the stores I work with. I still give the list of everything I have within the U.S. So, if a client has seen something and it's not within their store, I will send it to them to present to the client. It's very interesting. Once the client knows the brand, they really go for it. They dig into the Instagram to see other pieces. I think you have to be very fluid and flexible, and you have to be able to move around your jewelry if you want to accommodate your plan.
Sharon: What are the first things you advise people, your new clients, on? Is it to get involved with social media?
Lionel: I know we all hear the stories of people selling off Instagram. I think the brick and mortar is still—at a certain level, we're talking about jewelry. It’s different below $8,000. It's very rare when someone buys it from a website. Even a website like Moda Operandi, for example, if there is a piece—
Sharon: Which one?
Lionel: Moda Operandi. It's a website that was launched on the idea of doing trunk shows on there. For example, they will very often ask for the piece to be sent so they can show it to their clients. It's rare that they buy it directly off the website. I think for pieces that are $500 to $2,000, maybe $3,000, but above a certain price, the clients want to see it, feel it.
Sharon: And touch it. When you look for new clients, what do you look for? What would you consider new? Would you consider if the way they make it is new?
Lionel: There are there a few things. If I take them, for example, Mike Joseph is very interesting. He has great technique. The jewelry is going to be well made. He made this entire collection of flowers in titanium, but he used the reverse side of titanium to have it as a matte finish, as opposed to a very glossy one. I think with this collection, when he was at couture, he won two prizes. So, I think he is both innovative and has great technique.
Vishal, I like his take on traditional Indian jewelry, which has a lot of gold and stones, but he makes it much more sleek. The thing is not to see the metal. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the portrait cut.
Sharon: No, I’m not.
Lionel: The portrait cut is a slab of diamond. It's the Maharaja who built the Taj Mahal who actually asked his jeweler to do this type of slab of diamonds to put on top of their portraits so it would bring a shine to the miniature. So, it's a technique, and Vishal does rings and earrings. I think that's an interesting new way. I'm always looking for people who bring something new to the table.
Sharon: You mentioned the perspective. How could their perspective be new? When you talk to other art jewelers, sometimes you look at a piece and it looks normal, then they tell you the stories behind it and you understand it better.
Lionel: True. You can always try to understand the story. When you see Vishal make some of these pieces, I think you almost don't need the explanation. You see that there is something new there. I'm not saying it's wrong to try to have the story behind it, but I kind of like when—I’ve had numerous jewelers come in. They're coming to me and showing me things, and the thing I hear the most is, “I couldn't find this on the market.” And I look at the pieces, and I'm like, “I can bring you in 10 stores when there's exactly the same thing.” And I think, “No.”
Sharon: So it's their technique with the materials they use.
Lionel: The technique, the material, the inspiration. With Vishal it’s the reinterpretation of traditional Indian jewelry, but it's still very modern and light. Sylvie has more inspiration from literature or drawings. She goes to museums to find her inspiration.
Sharon: I was just thinking, do you represent people who are goldsmiths themselves making the jewelry, as opposed to them designing it and they have a goldsmith make it?
Lionel: Mike and Vishal have their own factories, so they are really following from the beginning, from the start. Sylvie has an atelier. She draws.
Sharon: Were you a maker of jewelry?
Lionel: No. Never. I’ve always liked jewelry, but I was never a jewelry maker.
Sharon: Have you learned over the years how something is made?
Lionel: Yes. I've learned more about the stones. I’ve learned more about the techniques. It's important to sell something, as you said earlier, to bring the most information. People are really curious today about how it’s made and the story behind it.
Sharon: No matter who your client is, are they interested in the way it's made? Do they ask you questions?
Lionel: There are different profiles. People who just respond to the look of it are not curious, and it depends on the jewelry itself. With Vishal, because of this new way and this new cut of diamond, people are asking. It's always interesting to get the background on it because there is a new historical background. Mike, for example, with his flowers connection, people were really intrigued by the use of titanium and how it was not used traditionally. So, yes, you get questions on that.
Sharon: How often do you see something new that you haven't seen before? Is it once a year?
Lionel: It's rare, actually, when you see people who are bringing something really new, a new proposal. Some people are doing stuff in a great way. Not everything has to be groundbreaking, and I get that. I go to couture every year, so I kind of scout, but just for myself. I like to see what's going on. That's not where I'm going to have a new client or anything. It's interesting to me to see what's new. Sometimes I see someone, and I refer them to all the stores, saying, “You should go and see that brand. It’s really cool. It's new.”
Sharon: Do you advise a store to go look at the different jewelry?
Lionel: Yeah, I would, even if I don’t work with them. I think stores appreciate that I do that. I think the one thing I'm known for is taking on brands that are different and unique. When I point out someone that I think is great, they will listen.
Sharon: Do you only work with people who work in gold or emeralds? You mentioned John Hardy. He only works in silver.
Lionel: No. For John Hardy, I went for the one-of-a-kind collection that was very stone oriented. No, I don't. The next big thing I did, I worked with Hearts on Fire, which was kind of relaunching and just hired a new designer. That was very interesting, to work with a big company. The idea of bringing this new designer on and kind of starting from scratch was an interesting thing. We worked on opening different stores and more classic, more bridal. That was an interesting strategy to implement.
Sharon: Did you advise them of a designer or did you walk in and they introduced you to a new designer?
Lionel: They already had the designer in mind, so we looked at the collection. They asked me about their archive and what I thought they should bring back on. I think my background with fashion and jewelry always interests people because they know I still have a foot in the fashion industry in a way.
Sharon: If somebody is in the fashion industry now, can they segue? How can they segue to doing what you're doing if they got tired of fashion?
Lionel: I think I know people who did the transition from fashion to jewelry. In the end, it’s the same actors. In the press and the stores, it's the same people, except for the jewelry stores. But if you talk about all the concept stores that carry jewelry as well, it's easy to do. It's the same work, basically.
Sharon: So, they wouldn't be getting away from that. Do you do pop-ups? They have become popular here.
Lionel: They do. I don't necessarily do pop-ups. They call it differently. For example, Vishal did something at Bergdorf called the Residency. We were in for three months, and it was very successful. It is now going to be permanent for Vishal. We’ll be at Bergdorf all the time.
I think the model of trunk shows is a bit overused. It's kind of difficult to make typical trunk shows today. Again, in a certain world, once you’re at a certain price point, some stores are doing a lot of them, and it's the same people that you're soliciting over and over. There's only so much you can do.
Sharon: With Vishal, what do you consider successful? You said he was successful in this residency. Was that Vishal?
Lionel: Vishal. The brand is called VAK.
Sharon: What was successful? What was the purpose of the residency?
Lionel: The jewelry is very well-made. It's a beautiful product and not terribly expensive. I think the proposal is that the value is great, and it was new. It's a new look. The salespeople were excited about it, and I think they really reached out to their clients. That's what made it successful in the end.
Sharon: You say now he's there permanently.
Lionel: Yes.
Sharon: He has what, a cabinet?
Lionel: Yeah, a vitrine. There’s a vitrine now in the salon.
Sharon: Do you ever have to pay to have prominence?
Lionel: No.
Sharon: What are your favorite things to sell?
Lionel: I like two things. I like rings, and I like earrings. Sylvie Corbelin has a quote that I always liked. She’ll say that earrings are a gift for the other. You don't see it on yourself, but it's the people who see you, see the earrings. My mother, for example, would never go out without earrings. She would put on a pair of earrings to match, and it was for her to feel dressed. She didn’t feel that she was dressed if she was not wearing earrings. And I like big cocktail rings.
Sharon: What kind of jewelry do you like for men? Do you like bracelets or necklaces?
Lionel: I do like bracelets for men or a nice pinky ring, I guess.
Sharon: I was surprised. I went out to lunch with somebody who had what I consider a fabulous necklace, but I would never consider it for a man. He got so many comments on it.
Lionel: I’m sure. A lot of guys now are buying diamond pieces. I think there’s a way to wear it that’s chic.
Sharon: How long have you been in the jewelry business?
Lionel: 18 years.
Sharon: It's a long time. What changes have you seen over that time?
Lionel: A lot of jewelry coming. A lot more jewelry.
Sharon: Really?
Lionel: Yeah. You see all the brands. Now the big trend—I was just saying yesterday, Prada is launching fine jewelry. Saint Laurent has launched fine jewelry. There’s Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci. Everybody's betting on jewelry being the moneymaker. I think the biggest growth we can see right now is men's. Men are buying jewelry.
Sharon: Would you say there are a lot more independent jewelers today than there were?
Lionel: Not only independent, but also all the houses are launching their own lines. Clothing houses, like Prada is launching a line. Saint Laurent is launching a line. Dior did it 20 years ago, but everybody's hopping on the jewelry train.
Sharon: Why do you think that is?
Lionel: I think there is a real interest again for jewelry. A wider interest than just buying, but as an investment. I think also during Covid, jewelry kind of proved to be Covid-proof. I think a lot of people got the idea that jewelry was the next big thing, because it's true that 2021 was an extraordinary year for jewelry. However, I don't think it's really a trend. I think it was at the moment, and we've seen since that the numbers have been down. The money that women would put in clothes and handbags and shoes, they were not going out, so that money went to jewelry, which was great. But I think it was instant. It was not necessarily a trend.
Sharon: Did your business go up because of Covid?
Lionel: Huge. We saw a huge difference.
Sharon And you've seen it go down or be flat?
Lionel: Go down and then flat. But go down, definitely.
Sharon: When you take on new clients, do they have to be making a certain amount? What do they have to have? What criteria do you use?
Lionel: Well, yes, I make sure they have enough finance to launch a business and to make it start. First of all, you need to have at least three or four years in front of you. There's no instant success. However, I'm always conservative in their growth. I'm not going to ask them to put out a lot of pieces. I think it's always about opening two or three key stores that are generating enough buzz as marketing, if you will, to help grow. But try not to overflow the market.
Sharon: What if they’re independent and making things you usually don’t represent, but you think there's something there, an innovation or a passion? Maybe they make pieces that sell for $3,000 or $5,000. That's their niche. Would you take somebody like them on?
Lionel: Yeah, I do. All the jewelers I work with, the price point starts at $5,000, $6,000.
Sharon: I won't even ask you how much it goes up to. Thank you so much for being here today.
Lionel: Thank you.
Sharon: I feel like I roped you in from a plane ride or something.
Lionel: No, no. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
Sharon: Thank you for being here.
We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.
Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.
The podcast currently has 319 episodes available.
320 Listeners
2,900 Listeners
544 Listeners
1,491 Listeners
17 Listeners
56,970 Listeners
663 Listeners
50 Listeners
35 Listeners
22 Listeners
13,359 Listeners
58 Listeners
11,415 Listeners
14 Listeners
6 Listeners