Welcome to the Gilt Trips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and
gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join
me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's
tune in on these topics and get golden. Hello. Today's episode is the first of a season of
storytelling. How do jewelers enter a world of beauty plus value plus luxury plus business?
If you ask people in my career, what got you into jewelry, you're going to hear the full
spectrum of answers. A few legacies into this. Some had to plan B it and others were
minding their own business and the quote unquote invitation arrived. But the common denominator
is that we didn't just pick jewelry somewhere over the adventure. It picked us as well. For
me, I did not call this in. It called me. Today, I'm going to share the subtle and obvious clues
that happened that were placed upon my path that took me from my youth all the way into
a robust career in self employment as a private jeweler. Spoiler alert. This was half planned,
half organic opportunity, a beautiful co-mingling of both strategy and surrender.
The first thing I'll admit when I'm asked about my industry is that it started in my
formative years. Firstly, I always saw magic from being a toddler and reinventing my toys
into accessories or getting mesmerized by the way a train headlights broke across my
bedroom walls. I always had a dose of that Walter Middie brain that entered a separate
world and that was part of my original design. Secondly, I always did art. I drew on anything.
Myself, the sidewalk, unfortunately, my childhood bedroom walls. Or I was cutting my own hair
before school picture day. Which by the way, I had mastered a straight line at an early
age so I'm not the one who needs to apologize for that. Thirdly, metal was always both sound
and shine to me for as long as I could remember. It was the clinking of coins, the clanging
of pots, the crashing of steel beams at construction sites. The endless image and the sporadic
noise captured my senses very early on. What did all this lead to? Alchemy of course. I
learned all of my inner abilities and all of my external interests to somehow fuse together
just like an alloy. And that was the long and winding road of my self discovery or monomyth
if you like the hero's journey that led me up the mountain to steal the fire from my
mentors, experience trial and error, honor, education, and call in both clients and colleagues.
You name it, it went into the forge. Now, well, I can't capture every single ingredient
that went into my career. And I also can't recall absolutely every experience. I am able
to say with my awareness the highlights and the moments that had me both being and becoming
the jeweler that I am today. As a child, I noticed certain metals, the aluminum of the
kitchen pots, the copper came onto my radar when my dad brought back a Native American bracelet
from a business trip. Silver was special to me because of a vacation to New Mexico. And
I saw rows and rows of smiths that were indigenous creating in this alloy. And of course gold.
My father was a dental tech and going to his lab watching him melt it down, witnessing
his wax carvings and his final crafting of someone's replacement tooth or crown or bridge
showed me my first glimpses into a future of metamorphosis using metals. The trajectory
that I was on in my teenage years had absolutely nothing to do with jewelry. However, as part
of my high school curriculum, we had a selection of art classes that we could take and not
too many interested me more than the jewelry one. While the teacher of this class was on
the verge of retiring and had very little emotional investment in what we were able
to learn, one of the assignments had me approach a classmate and ask for a little bit of design
direction. Unbeknownst to me, she would offer cash if I would make it come to life. And
so as a part of my homework, I made that ring for her. We both went to Dave's Rock Shop
in Evanston, Illinois and picked out the gem. This was like Dorothy landing in Oz. I had
no idea that there was an entire store devoted to gems and jewels for amateurs. Needless
to say, it was the easiest A I got in high school. Fast forward to college, I repeated
this trick. One of my elective classes was metals. It just so happened that the professor
was the president of the Society of Silversmiths. And she passionately impressed upon me that
while I was taking a class that could be a throwaway for most people, I had something
special or extra. The funny thing about youth is that you don't know how to contextualize
comments like that. When I graduated, another magic breadcrumb appeared on my path. My father
came down with something and couldn't attend a fundraiser and wanted to send me in his
place. When I figured out I'd be sitting at a dinner table with a bunch of older men
in suits, I promptly declined. This angered him greatly and he said, if you don't go,
I'll charge you for the ticket. And at the time, I was living with him after school.
So I begrudgingly went. Fate showed up for a third time and I was seated next to somebody
who asked me, what do you do? As a recent graduate, my answer wasn't great. I said,
well, I just finished college. My favorite class was jewelry. And I got this commission,
but I didn't get a deposit. And I think they're backing out. So now I'm on the hook. And he
asked, what does it look like? Well, I grabbed a cocktail napkin and sketched it out for
him. I can only remember my half of that experience. But somewhere in this, he had to have been
enchanted as well. Because the next thing I know, I got his business card. And he said,
come see me at the office as soon as you can. The next thing I know, I'm taking a trip down
to the Diamond District and he's encouraging me to finish this failed commission. So we
can submit it into a design competition. Oh, and meanwhile, I should meet this gem broker
and this wax carver and this caster and this polisher. Spoiler alert, I would win a handful
of awards with him. If you're going to have a career in jewelry, you need a mentor early
and often. My first job was at a store called Illusions. It was a franchise, simulant gems
in a gold alloy that were reproductions of famous jewelry. It was 1995. So the big deal
was the Princess Diana ring. It was quite the education because I got to learn under
somebody who knew nothing about jewelry. The owner was a lawyer who decided to leave her
industry and do something that she said she really loved, except there's not a lot of
correlation between going to court and selling beautiful objects and handling client expectations
and taking returns and navigating repairs. So it was a crash course in customer service
and handling objections while learning to support somebody who was terrible at sales.
I can look back on that job and feel charmed by it because it did open a door to me responding
to an ad in a newspaper. That's how jobs used to be found that an unnamed store was
looking for a designer. I threw my hat in the ring and the next thing you know, I am
the designer. I walked in, put my resume on the desk, we went to the counter. He gave
me a ring and said draw this. Little did I know that his biggest blind spot was not
being able to sketch clients' ideas. So at first, I basically played the role of court
stenographer and captured everything that a client was sharing and saying in a picture.
And that picture would help my boss ask for the commission. I would outgrow the dynamic
that I had with the manager there. And my next step was to go from designer into a bench
jeweler. I took my portfolio of my sketches and the pieces I had made for competition
in design and approached goldsmithing showrooms. I landed myself an apprenticeship. The glamour
ended by day two. It was rough. It was rigorous. It was a test of my confidence and my spirit.
I'll share more about my apprenticeship in a future episode. But what springboarded me
from that chapter was a desire to go back to school and learn gemology and surprise myself
because I not only signed up for how to understand gems and jewels, but also to become a master
jeweler. Little did I know that finishing up my gemology studies would plant seeds for
self employment. After my apprenticeship, I could cut the costs of having my creations
made because now I had certain skills. The pay there had been terrible and the conditions
were even worse. So I was already cultivating a clientele after hours. After my degree,
I got a few jobs that would give me revenue for my future. I recycled my athletics from
my formative years and being a teenager into a few fitness jobs and I eventually landed
at a training firm and then Chicago's crown jewel, the East Bank Club, which is an elite
multiplex. There was the paycheck. I executed a few collections in a handful of styles and
I began to reach out to stores and galleries as well as affordable art shows. One of my
best opportunities was getting referred to ancient echoes gallery. I remember being nervous
to show my work and at the time I felt pretty green. Ivy, the owner, was incredibly silent
when she looked over my samples in my portfolio. She then asked, where have you been? What
I heard was, justify yourself. So I started giving her a recap of my highlights and my
adventures and she said, no, no, no, where have you been? You're a perfect fit for us.
We need a house designer. So I became that and my work was on the showroom floor. But
the best part is Ivy was a PR genius and I ended up getting featured in a newspaper
article and now had copy or as the kids call it an asset for my media kit. Now let's
fast forward to 2009. Oh joy, the recession. Ivy closed her gallery not long after and
I had to reinvent my relationship to my industry. I began going to work for other stores. One
of my better adventures was in manufacturing. I landed myself an opportunity at a casting
house, which happened to be the largest independent manufacturer in the nation, meaning it created
for large and small stores across the country so that they could have their designs made
for their clients. What I didn't see coming is how much it would expose me to what was
new on the horizon, computer aided drafting or CAD designing. The second thing that was
rising up was the secondary market. In a simple twist of fate, my undergrad college roommate
went through a loss. Her mother, a world traveler, had passed and she was absolutely overwhelmed
with the amount of collectibles and jewelry that her parent possessed. I stepped up and
brokered my first estate liquidation. Let's jump another 10 years. And now I'm in a situation
a few years before COVID where jewelry is starting to plateau for me. And so I've applied
to the Midwest's largest independent showroom for the world of watches. There were 12 authorized
dealerships under one roof. And I could scratch that itch from my childhood growing up as a
military kid, where timepieces were the ultimate prize. From there, COVID would happen and
it was time to take my skills in manufacturing and make them portable. I went into transportation
and transportation. The designing with CAD, the execution in steel instead of gold, the
manufacturing of CNC, all of it was incredibly congruent with everything that I'd been doing
up until this point. And I'm grateful that I was able to have a job in metal while working
in a lockdown situation. After that, a family owned business had gone e-commerce right before
COVID. And it was an obvious yes to return to my first love, gold and jewels. What do
you know? I'm back in the secondary market. This time, instead of being independent, I'm
working for one of the big guys, the real real. And it was here I was asked to train
the new hires. And instead of doing an unpaid and thankless job, I birthed the idea of this
podcast. Where am I going with this? Aside from a podcast that educates and entertains
my peers, my colleagues, my friends, my clients around the world. It also sets up a springboard
for the next generation. It reminds me that once upon a time, I had a springboard. And
now I am one.
Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project
with people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the
next episode, keep your own stories sparkling.