Welcome to the GuiltTrips 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. The best parts about being a jeweler to me are
the storytelling, the nostalgia, and the fondness for both clients and projects. Most of the
people I know can recall their favorite commission at the drop of a hat. In fact, if you meet
somebody who doesn't have that tail at their fingertips, either it didn't happen or maybe
they really just don't like this job. I'm not one of those, and neither are the people
that are my favorite colleagues. In today's talk, I'm going to share my top ten projects
and what they taught me. Now, that may sound very romantic. I assure you, not all of these
went well or according to plan. And that's the magic of what we do, is the alchemy of
having to turn straw into gold and in a way become our own fairytale of taking something
useless and transforming it into value. So the first one isn't just chronological when
I was younger in my career, but you've heard about it before because it's really what
started my entire trajectory. It was the client who got me into making in gold. When I graduated
undergrad, I was just a kid making metal things, and somebody approached me and said,
will you make my wedding rings? If you're listening to this one in more of a standalone
format, I said, I don't work in gold. And her response was, gold schmold, it's metal,
why don't you give it a shot? Short story, I came up with some sketches, I got the go-ahead,
bought the stones, reserved the gold, and then was told, hey, we're going to save some
money and use our family rings instead. I had already graduated early to cut costs and
still left with debt. So to add another $1,500 as a 21-year-old on top of that was not a
good omen. Fast forward to how this resolved itself. I met somebody who encouraged me to
finish the rings, the money would be loaned, and it was the beginning of my relationship
with awards and competitions for design and craftsmanship abilities.
The project that became one of my favorites as far as cluster of clients was a Chicago
recruiter, and she found me through the only ad I've ever run in a magazine. Most of my
visibility was word of mouth or referrals or me networking. It was her 20th anniversary,
she had gotten the center stone from a different jeweler, however they weren't very skilled
at design and couldn't bring a vision for her pieces to life using her old wedding set.
That's pretty much what I do best. Not only did she show her ring generously to several
of her colleagues, not just in Chicago, but also in Dallas. But they all became my clients
too with the same type of project. Here's all my old stuff. I don't want to buy more
jewelry or at the time I can't buy more jewelry. How can this get reinvented? Not only do I
have beautiful portfolio pieces of before and after, but I also dubbed this type of program
and sometimes we would even take the exact same metal and recast it into its new project.
So it became this running joke called have a meltdown.
That same sponsor, the one who said make the rings mentioned previously, had a mother-in-law
who in her travels came back with a pair of incredibly well matched, highly saturated
as far as color, Colombian emeralds. And she had been through a few designers and retail
stores and she wasn't finding that fit. They weren't her artists and the ideas that were
getting suggested did no justice to these beautiful stones. My business sponsor said
I'm going to put you in front of my mother-in-law and not knowing what to expect because I was
young, I didn't have a mother-in-law, it wasn't an intimidation factor for me. Two different
generations got along swimmingly. And because of my art background, because I had done so
much life drawing, because I had done architecture before I was into jewelry, because I took
a lot of studio arts as my minor in undergrad, I was able to envision something for her that
was going to work with the color that she brought to the table in the gem. The design
of her ear to jaw line and the timeline in which she expected this to be completed. What
came out of it is I had it professionally photographed, which back then was quite the
expense. When I partnered with the gallery that made me their house designer, I had a
print of this. It was that print that the gallery owner submitted in a PR blast that
led to an article on me in the local newspaper. The set of wedding rings that I did for a
couple came out of me having my business cards at the local crystal and gem shop. Dave's
Rock Shop in Evanston, Illinois is pretty famous. It has a prehistoric museum in its
basement, so it's not your typical New Age place. It's geological in nature. And this
particular couple had gone shopping for stones. And now we're looking for an artist to put
them into their commitment rings. I had been doing a lot of large diamond engagement rings
for the North Shore type of clientele. And so to get a phone call saying hi, I got your
name and information from the Rock Shop, and we're looking to do something extremely symbolic.
Great, you have my attention. When I called her back, her voicemail had the most intriguing
recording on it. I'm not available right now. Please answer two questions that are very
important. Who are you? What do you want? And it was so much more philosophical than just,
yeah, leave your name and your business. So when I met these two, I was expecting something
out of the ordinary. And they delivered. It just so happened that this was the paradigm
shift for the type of clientele that I would be helping. I went exactly from their project
into the arena of working with extremely creative types, professional artists, alternative lifestyles.
And it just so happened that this couple would end up introducing me to landmark education,
which would profoundly accelerate my personal growth as well as my business direction.
This next couple will always held a special place in my heart because of their sweetness.
But more importantly, I learned to become a master at keeping secrets, helping him retain
a certain level of surprise. During our collaboration, there were times where I'd have to call him
except his girlfriend was always around. And so you can't just walk into the other room
and take all these strange phone calls that are in hushed voices and coded words because
you will raise suspicion. My client called me one day as we were wrapping up and getting
ready to have him pick up his piece to go get engaged on their vacation. What do I do?
I think she's on to me. I said, I've got you covered. When you two come by as you're leaving
town, I want you to ask me to go to the bathroom, go upstairs. I'll leave my door open. Put
the check on my workbench. Take the ring. I'll talk to her. So as he did that when they
stopped by, she had what we call a shit eating grin. And my response to her was, I hope you
have the world's best vacation. I am so excited for you to have some real rest and relaxation.
And when you get back, we can start working on your ring designs. There is no phrase strong
enough for the defeat that became her new expression. The engagement went so well that
she burst into tears. And to this day, 20 years later, still wearing that ring. My transition
into working in non-profit was completely unexpected. I had been doing wedding jewelry
for a philanthropic couple. And at one point she asked me, can you make some cuff links
that we can give to some of our strongest advocates on the board? And so it was one
of those opportunities to interpret their logo or their icon or their symbol into something
wearable. And that's what I did. It was for the CARA program. The visual that we used
for them was part of their branding, which was a deconstructed outline of a butterfly
from a profile view. This became circular pendants, tie tacks, and for the director,
it was a pair of cuff links. I was there at the presentation, and this program is to rehabilitate
people who have been homeless or have felonies back into a workforce so that they can be
self-sufficient. And the director was one of their best cases of success. The letter that
I got and the way that he honored himself and acknowledged his entire journey and how
much this gift meant to him and that this is really just the beginning of a new beginning
for him was something I will forever cherish. And it really made me want to continue working
with non-for-profits, which I did do. There was a project for Bodie Spiritual Center that
was a fundraiser to get the kids to spiritual camp. And there were charms that became part
of the Pet Me project to match rescue animals with ideal owners. As far as unusual requests,
conversations are free. So when a colleague came to me and said, I've got a strange one,
my client went on vacation with his girlfriend, they panned for gold, and found a bunch of
nuggets. Do you think you can make their engagement ring out of these? It took partnering with
the right casting house to do so, and it had been a good 20 years since I had to make my
own alloy, but we were able to figure out what the carriage was of these composite gold
nuggets and what it would take to make it a workable 18 karat gold blend for the engagement
ring. And to this day, that's probably one of my favorite projects to talk about because
I can't think of any other clients, not just in my business, but in anybody's business,
you can say that their fiancee, now wife, is wearing the ring from the gold they panned
for on a vacation when they were dating. You know that I started in non-precious metals.
So when a brewmaster and his fiancee said, we want to make his wedding band out of found
objects at the brewery, naturally, I had to go find out what they meant. In the process,
we walked the entire facility and looked at all that we had to work with. There were wood
staves for aging barrels, there was copper piping for some of the fermentation vats,
and there were also steel rings that were holding the barrels together. The project
was an energy of trial and error, discovery, and the intersecting of worlds of two careers
that came together as a final totem to an absolutely wonderful love story.
At one point, I ventured into the B2B world, or business to business. The client had been
a previous private jewelry patron, so I had done her engagement ring, her wedding ring,
her husband's wedding ring, gifts for the family, and a few personal pieces. When it
came time to create a line for her new company, it was a more formal process as far as the
ideation and creation. There were sketches, meetings, line sheets, gathering contractors,
finding suppliers, the expected. The original deal was make me 500 pieces, and I'll pay
you for them. I made the 500 pieces and, because it was a start-up, she said, I don't have
the money for it, loan it to me, and I'll pay you when they sell. I'm sure you know
where this is going. What I got out of this adventure and why it's on my top ten list
is because it turned me into being resourceful when you have unwanted inventory or product.
Do you know how many other people could possibly desire this? I gamified it. It became an adventure
of here is her industry, here is jewelry slash accessories for that industry. Let's move
the rings out of the dartboard. This was that project for her business. How about this for
the industry? How about adjacent industries? How about organic referrals? How about people
who have nothing to do with the business itself who just love this kind of motif?
And the last project to talk about is making a ring for yourself when you're ready to step
away from the bench. Having designed for over 20 years, having made 10,000 rings, and of
course, there are multiple opportunities, often daily, to come across beautiful ideas
and try things on and envision if it was my glass slipper or not. Does this express how
I am under my skin and in the world? At some point later than sooner, the muse came to
me and I was able to create a quote unquote retirement ring for myself. Obviously, I wasn't
going to stop creating, but it was time to shift from being full time professional artist
to by appointment. That ring is what you see as the emblem for this podcast. It is a violetish
blue sapphire I traded a fantastic colleague for and the rose gold framework is an homage
to the metalwork and decor of the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago on Wabash and Adams,
the very same corner that a 21 year old who didn't know what she was going to do after
not taking a deposit or getting a contract on a ring. That same person would find herself
standing on that corner getting ready to meet her future business sponsor at his office
address.
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.