May 12, 2024 • 55 mins
After seeing an antique necklace online, Sugar Gay goes down a rabbit hole tracking down all things from the period that influenced Tiffany & Co. and the time I met the president of Tiffany's.
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Jewelry as your side hustle with Sugar Gay Yisper and I'm Sugar Gay Yisper.
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So welcome.
I'm so glad you're here.
This is going to be a little something different.
Usually I interview other people that are in the jewelry business or a business adjacent,
somebody that might be helping a jewelry business, that kind of thing.
You want to be in my podcast?
Just shoot me an email.
Today I saw something that kind of was like really interesting.
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And if you go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and you go to the very end, you're going to see
how I was, I was adjacent.
Like I'm not part of the start, but I'm like right here.
And it's like a really big part of my personal journey.
So let's just jump in.
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I'm a very curious person.
I'm always reading everything.
And if I'm reading something, I'm going to like click on it and I'm going to find out
more if it's something that's interesting to me.
I don't even know how this story came to me.
I do.
It was a picture of a necklace, a really amazing necklace.
It was one that was like worn right here.
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It was all done out of aquamarines and diamonds.
They call it a paru, paru, paru.
I don't know.
It's a French word for this kind of a necklace.
It's a little bit different necklace.
And it has a great story.
And so I started clicking around and I'm like, wow, this is really a great story because
it's like so much interwoven into the jewelry journey today.
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And I'm just so excited to share this with you because it's a really old story.
So let's go back to right after the Civil War was over.
So then 1865, the Civil War was over.
So you can imagine kind of what was going on in that time period.
Lots of things happening.
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Lots of things happening.
The war actually, like every war, it like puts money into things that are going on and
then there's like this big rebound afterwards.
And so we're kind of there.
We're in 1965, the war is over.
P.T. Barnum had an exhibit.
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This is before he became circus.
So but P.T. Barnum, that guy, he had in 1965 a display of minerals that he had collected
around the world, I guess, while he's circusing.
And a little 10 year old boy saw them and it kind of like changed the course of history.
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So the guy was George Kuntz, K-U-N-Z.
And he saw this collection and he was like, Oh my God, it like flipped a switch with him.
If you're a rock person like me, I can imagine sitting there looking at all that going, Oh
my God.
And look at what is in nature.
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You have that experience?
Go to a museum and look at some of the specimens that are out there.
I just did the Tucson Gym and Mineral Show.
We're still talking about mineral specimens today.
Well, what was cool about Kuntz is he was like a little business guy, a little entrepreneur.
For his little side hustle, he decided he would make his own collection.
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Now during this same time period of when this was happening was also the big engineering
beats that were happening, making the Erie Canal, which was connecting like New York
all the way to the Great Lakes.
So they had to dig up all this earth and move.
It was a big thing.
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If you haven't read about it, I have because I have a mother-in-law who is in a 100 year
old plus house that was actually moved back off of the St. Lawrence River during that
time as they dug out the river and made it deeper.
So I know about all that history.
I've seen all the pictures.
I've seen how our house was moved and all the above.
It's really fascinating if you've ever been that area of State of New York, the Erie area.
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Give that a try.
So all of that earth moving brought up things that had not really been seen before in the
U.S., so all kinds of mineral specimens.
So this little 10 year old boy is out like hops giving around.
He lived in Brooklyn.
So he's looking around and he's just a little kid and he's picking up all these rocks.
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And then when it got to be a thousand rocks, he sold it at that time, which was a great
deal of money, and then he did it again.
And then he did it again.
And then his rocks specimens got even bigger and better and they were selling for thousands
of dollars in those day dollars.
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So a lot of money.
He really knew what he was looking for and he was finding amazing things just as a curious
child that had his attention grabbed by P.T.
Barnum.
Pretty fun.
Okay, this story continues.
Well, there's another guy that comes into play at this time.
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He is really the point of the story.
His name was Pauling Barnum, like Farm, Farm, George, Pauling Barnum.
And he was just, he was a metallurgist.
He was like self-taught.
He was really, really fine sculptor.
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He was actually married to an artist too.
They were like in that time period.
Now we're going to fast forward here to let's see.
1985, so 20 years has now passed since Coons has been binding all of these stones and doing
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all this stuff.
Now so Coons goes to Tiffany's and company was very small little thing in New York at
that time.
And the original Tiffany, the father who started the business sees in these stones a possibility
of really doing great things.
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Oh my God, it's so great.
So the Coons and Farnham get to know each other.
And so Farnham starts making these amazing pieces of jewelry.
The same time, if you look at this, the line of time that Faberge was coming into play.
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So we know that, you know, the metals, they had like figured out things, you know, there
was, you know, even some electricity kind of happening in that time.
You kind of think about what all is happening in that time.
Well Farnham figured out how to carve these stones and make them look like the stems of
a flower.
He knew his stones, but he was also getting all kinds of information and really great
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stones from Coons.
Coons at the same time, he gets sent by the US government to become part of this geological
survey that's just going to survey for minerals across the wherever it was, like just say
upstate New York, because they were in that area.
So he becomes now a super rich resource for Tiffany's because he knows all the stones,
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where they're from, how he can get more, what they're worth, like he knows all kinds of
stuff.
And so now he's giving that information to the US government, but the government in
exchange for that is letting him into this circle so that he can like spread the word
and they can like learn more about it from him, like, because he's been doing this now
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for 20 years, so if it's smart.
So think about that.
So he's supplying the stones.
He went down to Mexico, for example, there's one mine down there, it's probably still there,
it does fire opal and he was spending $1,000 a stone for fire opal and he made a beautiful
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necklace out of these fire opals, which nobody had ever seen before.
And that's still in the Tiffany's warehouses somewhere, like because it was such a priceless
piece it never got sold it was just considered to be, you know, a really a masterpiece.
So Coons and Farnham are great friends because they are building this Tiffany Empire, all
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at the same time working in collaboration.
And if you go in if you look at some of the drawings, they're really based on nature so
lots of flowers and butterflies and, you know, just the floral things and things that we
still think of today as beautiful the birds, you know, nature so, you know, this is pre
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Nouveau so there wasn't any of that like just like styling going on.
It was simply think Faberge eggs and how intricate they were.
And so the same scale in the US, that's happening now.
They took some of these pieces that Farnham had made including this one awkward Marine
necklace that I saw the parade, and it went to the, the great exposition in Paris that
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happened when the Eiffel Tower was opened up.
And so they had like the best of all the world.
And this piece was part of them but there was a little bit of kind of the, the, the general
public that came to come see these pieces.
Yes, they were amazing, but the Faberge eggs kind of like talked up, you know, the votes.
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So when they came back to the US, and Farnham kept working, their original Tiffany's Lewis
comfort Tiffany died and his son takes over and his son has a whole different way of how
he wants things to happen and what the design should be and, you know, how things artists
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in, you know, the stained glass, for example, that was kind of started by the father and
things were kind of, you know, put together in really unusual ways and it was Tiffany's
so, you know, they had lots of money.
But the same time, Coons was writing these amazing books for Tiffany's.
Let me just read you the title of one of the books because they would do this every year
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he would have like for their best customers, these books that Tiffany's would put out of,
you know, all their great things over the year was, you know, like a sample book basically,
I would love to see one.
So one of the books was called the etiquette of gyms.
I love that.
Natural natal stones, meaning you're kind of like your birthstone and natal stone sentiments.
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So diamonds would be not having even come into play at this point really is the diamond
ring of choice for weddings and superstitions associated with precious stones.
So that was like one book that so actually Farnham got a PhD in gemology at that time
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like he was really like leading the science he was the science at that time.
He wrote 300 papers and books and he was, you know, very much part of that whole thing
that really brought stones up to something that were beautiful and could they go back
like stones go back to ancient times, thousands and thousands of years ago they're making
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little finding little stones and when they figured out gold and how to like put a hole
in it like stones have been around for a long time.
But these two guys in the US bumped into their game.
So you have to think Goons was writing stories and books and articles and got a PhD and like
he was really the pusher of all things great that Tiffany's got a hold of.
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He had the inside scoop and that really helped Tiffany's grow too because in Tiffany's knew
how much stocks there were on, you know, a stock being like how much what was the supply
like on, you know, hercumium diamonds are from that area.
They're not really diamonds.
They're really just a super clear quartz quartz, but they look like diamonds.
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They're so beautiful.
So these kind of things are all kind of happening all simultaneously and then Farham and Tiffany's
lose their their interest together because the new son of the two is running Tiffany's
doesn't want the old guy in there.
He wants to have his own stuff.
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So out he goes and basically goes away into obscurity.
His pieces are signed and that was really the only thing that kind of saved him from
like never being found again because people do know of his works.
This is actually how I found him because there was one of those antique road shows and it
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was talking about this necklaces this lady came in with and she was like really surprised
like, I don't know what this thing is this bar and I'm guy and they're like, well, hold
the phone, that's more like a gazillion dollars because it was one of the original Tiffany
pieces that was actually signed by him.
So that was pretty cute.
That was pretty amazing.
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So this is what Kuntz said about the stones at that time that he was finding when he was
a young person.
The engineering projects brought up the fresh virgin soil and by the mid 1920s serious collections
were like way by his 1920 the serious collections were so valuable at that time.
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I love that.
I love that that it goes so far back and that we do know a lot of his pieces.
You really need to look them up like he would like carve the stem so they would be rounded
in a pen and he would like put hinges on things.
So there was that movement which was something that Faberge was doing.
Faberge would put a little trimmer, a trimmer, trimmer door and in a crown so that from
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across the room that crown was really lighting, you know, hitting the light, the candle, obruses
were really lighting up that person that was wearing that crown.
So all that technology of being able to put a little hinge on something, it still happens
today but they were the ones that were starting this these really Faberge and a far enough.
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So we love that about them.
I think that that was pretty amazing.
Now let me tell you how how's that really today.
So back in 1976 I was in seventh grade, eighth grade somewhere there maybe I was in eighth
grade right and I'm standing out at the school bus waiting for my mother or something and
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a little friend of mine who was a one year younger J Rockaway H J Rockaway Harold J Rockaway
who's passed on now but he was a very dear friend of mine and you know we just have all
this great all this great fun life about about to happen in front of us so we're all happy
little kids and he says something about oh my mother has these these figurines it was
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Christmas time these figurines from the the crash and then she's she's done them in gold
and they're in Tiffany's windows and I was like what oh okay well I knew where Tiffany's
was I'd been there a million times I've been in the gallery in Houston since it first
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opened like it was a part of our life was to go to the malls back then right and the
gallery I had a great ice skating rink so you would go there and and then right outside
of Neiman's was Tiffany's and actually it was down the hall until they moved a little
bit into a bigger location and I started watching those windows.
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Until I was 28 years so we're talking about like 13 to 28 so good 15 years I've been watching
the windows of Tiffany's just because I'm so curious to see what all they put in there
like I had no idea that people could actually like put things in Tiffany's windows so and
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that year I don't know what year was so on like 28 29 30 in that general I had my glass
period and I say that it's like artists go through their you know their things where
they're like super enriched with that like whatever they're learning about and mine
happened to be glass at the time not blowing glass or melting glass but sculpting with
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glass for sure and I came upon this place which is still part of my life today if they
only knew it was a really old warehouse in Pasadena Texas it had almost no light it was
like dark you had to bring a flashlight and you had to wear rubber boots because at times
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if it had rained the water was up to your ankles in this old warehouse can you believe
that they had been making stained glass windows there for you know 40 years in this old factory
this old you know this old place and they had these really old tiles there they're
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like probably like a foot by like eight inches and they're they're really thick and they
were they brought them over from England that's where they're originally made and so they
would chop those up and then the stained glass windows come in two kinds they come in the
kind with the copper and the soldering you know the flat stained glass that you're used
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to and then there's also if you look at churches they have this like chunky kind of glass that
set into a black epoxy or an epoxy kind of a product that would harden and keep the stones
in and then they would like sand and put this black gravelly kind of sand on top and that's
what held the glass into these big stained glass windows so there's this two kind and
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they were making both of those so they had a huge amount of excess product and because
I was like I don't know doctor's wife and I had nothing else to do but make really cool
shit I was in there like so many times I would just come with like a huge bucket and I'd
be like okay how much is this bucket and then I'd bring like more buckets and then
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more buckets and all of a sudden I had like all of this glass and I'm making things with
them I made like things for aquariums where the little fishies could like swim through
little glass sculptures and they were because it was all done with a silicone it was all
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friendly for fish and so I made these things and then they got bigger and bigger and then
I'm like making I'm like putting glass everywhere like glass became my theme at that same time
I went up to Arkansas to go visit my grandparents and on the side of the road was a rock chop
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and they had all of this turquoise glass it's from the insulators that were on the electrical
poles it's kind of like that blue green glass you might have seen them before but this was
the slag glass that when they stopped making those glass insulators and switched over to
a ceramic insulator for electrical poles then they had to like get rid of all this glass
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and it was like a million pounds of slag glass they just brought brought it up into chunks
through in the back of a big dump truck or truck essentially and then they would go scur
around to rock shops and sell it by the by the pound okay so I found this rock shop I
used with my grandfather and I'm like oh my god I gotta have that I used every penny
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that was in my purse this is before we had like debit cards maybe we had debt we must
have had debit cards but on the side of the road at a rock shop if I can use your debt
card you're gonna use your cash I had two little kids and I was in Arkansas and I had
to drive all the way back to Houston I had must have had a gas card but I didn't have
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one penny in my pocket because I spent it all on this glass it was fabulous so now I'm
like really rich with amazing glass there's a point to the story so I made some sculptures
and they are really cool and I called Tiffany's I'm like you know back when I was in junior
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high school I talked to somebody whose mother had her pieces in the Tiffany's windows and
I've been trying really hard to think of something that would be equally as cool and unique to
the world that had never been seen before these glass sculptures that I'm making are
it so can I come show you the girl was like yeah I don't know this is like we don't really
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do that I'm like I promise you they're cool she's like okay bring me something okay so
I came in Tiffany's at this point had forgot how many windows it was maybe like six windows
instead of the original two because they had expanded so she loved them she's like okay
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we have six windows I need you to make I need you to come back by like next week they always
never give you a deadline it's like next week is that fine I'm like yeah no problem so of
course I brought the coolest shit for my windows for Tiffany's it was a really big deal I worked
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with her on placing the jewelry in the windows but I didn't pick out you know what went where
and how things went I just kind of like okay here's this piece okay and whatever we're
gonna do with it okay well here's Elise Peretti was really a big designer at Tiffany she's
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the one that did the open heart the little that's Elise Peretti and then also Picasso
Paloma Picasso had a collection that was all like really juicy gems juicy combinations
of Tiffany's gyms so those were the two women so it was kind of decided okay we're gonna
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really focus on making the windows with these juicy gems that go with this class sculptures
that I had brought in they were so cool like it was really fun like I took my kids to go show them
we took pictures I had another friend that took really good pictures I think there's
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probably one of them here in the studio somewhere I don't know I know I have it because it's a legacy
piece and yeah I ended up well I'll tell you about that man the rest of the story so it was a really
big deal and I was really excited well when I came back home I had kind of like you know I had laid
out all the different kind of color combinations that I kind of liked and there was one more
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that I could make and it was little like a little maybe that big a little so I had a piece of glass
down and then I took all of these little cuts that I got from this warehouse that were just like
little sticks of all different kinds of colors of pinks and purples and you know it was really some
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vibe in this old glass so the glass is the story of this and you know you just kind of make kind of
looks kind of like a a downtown landscape kind of like you know it's just like tall buildings kind
of like if you looked over Manhattan you would see all those buildings and that's kind of what
the sculpture looked like like little things but very delicate and dainty and pinks and purples
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and I was going to give that to the girl who agreed that I could have my sculptures in Tiffany's
windows so I get there and I'm like kind of like skipping through I've got my little son with me
he's probably like two or three and he went everywhere with me he was just such a little joy
and he ends up being a really really good designer himself and I think it's because he was always
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with his mother and we were like little pals so we're kind of like looking at the windows and I'm
like oh wait something is wrong because like that's not the piece of jewelry that we had on that
window like what's that and then I went to the next windows we're like walking down that was on
the outside of the building is where they had these some of these windows and then some inside in the
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mall and I'm like well that's wrong and then I like look at one window and I'm like something
terrible has gone wrong because everything was like it was just kind of like something was wrong
it was everything was upside down it did not make sense to me I had just seen it like two days
before and it was all beautiful and now I go inside there's like the president of tiffanese
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the head of security the head of security's assistant the head of this the head of this
and they're all these men lined up they had taken their red eye from new york to come to this tiffanese
because somebody had taken this is what they told me a tire iron and smashed one of the windows
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that had like this elizabeth taylor necklace line that was worth like a quarter of a million
dollars on one of my sculptures and the president of tiffanese looks at me and I've got this little
tiny thing in front of me it's so cute and the girl from tiffanese that I had been working with
I can't remember her name now but she's irrelevant she kind of looks at me and says you know do not
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give that to me okay gotcha so when the president of tiffanese is talking to me he's like did you
know that there was no security on that window when you put that quarter of a million dollar
necklace in there I was like no sir there's no way I could have known that and I really I didn't
pick the jewelry I just brought the sculptures in a little bit more back and forth they had to
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like check me out to make sure I wasn't involved in that heist yes I wasn't involved I had nothing
to do with it I did not know that there was one window that we put the most valuable necklace
in there and somebody smashed the window grab take the necklace so that's why all the jewelry
had changed they had all put like little tiny things in there instead of these wow so we at
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least I had good photos of it one time I was there so then we're chatting up and I'm like talking to
the guy and he's really nice and and I appreciated you know that you know he was nice to me so I had
this little sculpture so I'm like oh but I made you a little sculpture and then he looks at me
really serious and he goes how did you know that my living room was pink and purple I was like there's
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no way I would know that your living room was pink and purple it just worked out we ended up writing
me the nicest note that I still have tucked away because he was like okay you're like a visionary
you like nailed me I'm like I didn't it was just happenstance and he ended up putting that sculpture
on his mantle he said and he thought about me often and it was great so now with that there became
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another little issue and I ended up working for Tiffany's for quite a while after that
bringing them things that we could do the wind as in but after about I don't know
like two years John Loring who was the director of Tiffany's and a very prolific artist himself
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and also a writer of one of the books on the Pauling, Farnam and Coontz information his books
that he wrote about that time period and he brought out of the vaults all these amazing sketches
and things that Pauling had done so so he's so the head of Tiffany's that I never got to meet
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but he was in charge of all the visuals for Tiffany's and he had written a book on Pauling and Coontz
and talking about all the things that happened during that time period and it must have been an
amazing book like it must have written itself I mean he has access to everything in the vaults
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that Tiffany's has so that was kind of cool but John Loring decided after my little fiasco at the
Tiffany's in Houston that from after this was like probably like two years after it came down from
the top it took him like a while to figure out like what are we gonna do what are we gonna do
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and this girl in Houston she's like doing all this stuff for the windows and it was great it was like
the best time of my life I had so much fun we did like Christmas things and the little reindeer
we put little reindeer yeah it was like we used like salt to create and salt and sugar to create the
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the snow and the little things and you know it's all about the whole point of Tiffany's windows
and this is why jewelry if you're out there selling your jewelry this is important and this
is what I my credence is was from that time period where it's all about making a customer stop who's
walking by and just go whoa what's that and look a little bit deeper maybe it's just for three seconds
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but that time that they're stopping and looking and the little details that we would put into the
windows same thing with Bergman Goodman word off Goodman now these the window people people that
design windows are really good at looking at like the minute little detail that you make you know
but they're not just sticking a diamond right in the center of the window they're creating a story
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that draws you in so that you find like where is that piece of jewelry I know there's got a piece
piece of jewelry in here so where is it and then you kind of have to look and you go oh right there
there it is it's that you don't put it in the most noticeable place you put it where they they're
kind of have to like interact with the window in order to do that I ended up with a company called
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away with windows and I designed window treatments for you know other kind of stores mostly jewelry
stores but other kind of stores too I was like my gig for a while because I really liked them
but back to John Lorring so John Lorring came down with an edict because I just kind of like
showed up at Tiffany's one day and I'm like okay you know do we have another project coming up
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like what are we going to do and what can I do for you and always subservient like these are the
people that I'm working for and because now it came down from John that from now on he would
design all the windows to be one design and it would go across all the stores across Tiffany and
we're going to have one look and it's going to be one thing and there's not going to be any of this
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fluffy stuff and we're not going to be losing half a million dollar quarter of a million dollar
necklaces off the side because you know somebody didn't do it right that was a sad sad day for me
because I ended my little my little time to shine which had started back when I was you know in
seventh grade and now I got to like do this thing and I really enjoyed it and it was such a gift
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and I had so much fun and you know it was really a feather in my cap during that time period and
it was a really fun time period where I really got to explore glass well still that glass I have a
big sculpture at the ranch that I use those big glasses for and I'm still collecting glass I don't
know what it's about but I think resin has a lot of this glass like properties you know so I know
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that in my jewelry these earrings for example like they're stones and they're set in resin
can you see how pretty they are oh my god they're so gorgeous but you know all of these stones and
all this stuff that we work with as jewelers it has legacy it has legs it goes all the way back to
you know ancient times of first beads that they know that they ever found were of an ostrich egg
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do I have them here uh there's somewhere ostrich egg beads which have you ever tried to cut an ostrich
into a bead with a rock another rock that's all you got because there was no metal back then
this is like stone age times they're making things to bedazzle themselves and it was an
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ostrich egg was it kind of not easy but I've tried to cut an ostrich egg and I had to get a tile
cutter to cut through them they are so strong remember they get they're gonna fall out and down
onto the ground when they're when they're I don't know what do you say when they're birthed you know
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they are so hard to to think that you could like shatter an egg and then take those little tiny pieces
and then chip them down even smaller so they're a little tiny half an inch and then put a hole in them
with another rock that's going to have like a little point in there and it's it's like it's not
like metal but it's so close to metal I I just I implore you to get an ostrich egg the next time
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you see one pick it up and go could I take a rock and make it make this which is like curved
into a bead like a little tiny bead yeah I have some that I bought in South Africa my son lives there
and he gives me lots of Easter egg ostrich eggs and and I've done a lot of things for a company
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here in town where we use those ostrich eggs and made centerpieces on tables and I don't know I've
done a million different things with those ostrich eggs I have a couple of them right over there so
I love this part about jewelry about it is connected to our ancient past certainly our
ancient past people were adoring themselves have you ever been to LaBear tar pits in
(36:17):
in LA it's right in the middle of the town it's like right on Wiltshire Boulevard right it's like
right there where all the stuff is happening there's this amazing museum that's where you know
California is oil town like it's an oil city there's oil derricks all over LA and there was
(36:38):
this one area where that tar was constantly there from the beginning of time from eons and eons
and it would trap things would fall into this so I don't know I don't want to say it wrong but the
little creatures big creatures people so it must have been like maybe it had like a topping of
(37:01):
water on it I think that's where it was and all the animals would come to get this water but
once they were like shoved into the water or you know there's like a fight or you know they're like
trying to get each other kill each other because you know that's what they did then once they fell
into this water and they fell down into that tar they just became part of the tar so now that they're
(37:24):
excavating this really old tar pit that was you know from you know tens of thousands or I don't
know if it goes back how far it goes back I do because I took tons of pictures of all the reference
material but there was one picture that I took a picture of and it was they you know they found
the remains of a woman a full skeleton because you know she was in the tar but then she also had
(37:48):
a necklace on and you know they would have known it would have been like senior because
they didn't have chains back then so it would have been like you know gut or something like that or
some kind of a thing that they would have woven like maybe braided some I don't know what they were
doing but then she had these little dangle things very much like a necklace I would make today like
(38:10):
you know with a you know things that could be put on a necklace that represented her tribe or
what she liked or things that she found something like that just like we do today yeah nothing has
changed nothing has changed we are people that adorn ourselves you know I also want to talk about
(38:30):
well this week was the Met Gala and back to New York again I saw beautiful gowns I saw beautiful
people wearing beautiful grounds I saw some really a lot of weird like why are we wearing all this
naked stuff like just put something nice on your body don't try to like we are not turned on by your
(38:56):
senior butt like just wear a pretty something because that's what you're there for it was supposed
to be a theme you're supposed to go with the theme and the theme was kind of archaic they need to
like make that theme a little bit easier for people to translate into something that's the
number one problem and then you know it's all about the show and it's all about the drama and you
know Kim Kardashian her and her little midget waist which is just kind of an extreme I would have
(39:21):
rather have seen beautiful gowns like there were there were some amazing gowns did you see some
of those gowns they're really pretty and then you see all the diamonds because of course that's how
these celebrities get there is because they're really like sponsored by Chanel and Carl Lagerfeld
and all those big brands and who make the dress for them and you know pay for their
(39:45):
rights to go to the table and you know be part of the scene and be seen and the publicity is what
they're buying by having the star or star or actor actress actor wearing these amazing gowns and then
they're diamond jewelry I say let's have a different category and I'm going to see this for the Oscars
(40:08):
too let's have it where it's like let's have some really cool shit in the jewelry department happening
there because it's not like the Swarovski crystal had a beautiful outfit the necklace was okay
it wasn't great it was like something I would have done 10 years ago like really Swarovski crystal
(40:30):
get your shit together yeah that's why you don't make beads anymore because you never could understand
how to use your amazing product you had beads in colors and shapes and sizes and I had them all
I loved them I love Swarovski crystal I bought into it I remember the first time that one of my
(40:53):
customers was wearing one of my bracelets and I told her what all the beads were and they were
amazing and they all had a history and they were all old and vintage and never been used before
but I threw on a couple of Swarovski crystals because I don't know I bought them
and I remember her going oh look at that that's a Swarovski crystal I was like okay from now on
(41:16):
it's all Swarovski crystals because she didn't care that much about how vintage it was I have so
many old things that are around here I can't even tell you what it is oh really old African beads
that are from recycled ones which I'm doing an African store next so that's kind of that's a good
(41:36):
thing for me to pick up because now I know where those are but anyway so the point is is that
we need to like value interesting jewelry as much as these bespoke gowns now Hermes picked me as one
of the top 50 artisans in all of Texas that's saying something like I put in my great 20 years
(41:58):
of working with all kinds of beads especially Swarovski crystal and fossils minerals gems pearls
those kind of things but when Swarovski crystals stopped making those it was because they made the
marketing mistake to not promote their product except for a little tiny four millimeter bicone
(42:19):
beads and I know this because I've talked to all those people in fact I had Fire Mountain Gyms who
is one of my suppliers and I love them dearly and I got to meet the owners one time and they know me
they love me like we've been as I've been a platinum partner there for years and they called me and
said hey let's do something together I'm like let's do something together but they even they did not
(42:44):
understand and they're like kind of complicit too is that they would have these big contests
and the contest winners were always the four millimeter bicone bead that's the little triangle
kind of a bead it's got a hole in it but it's like kind of triangular and soft soft it's not easy to
wear I don't like that little sharp edge on my jewelry I like the rounded faucet of beads because
(43:08):
if they're they're they're going to touch your skin it's not going to be that sharp little edge of
that bead hurting you but these people that were winning would have like a million of one color
of this four millimeter bicone bead and like just pulled my hair out I'm like what are you freaking
doing like show your creativity by using the beauty of Swarovski crystal beads and I was a
(43:32):
vetted partner with Swarovski crystal I signed the documents I went there I know them and I even
knew one of the colors that the guy that was signing me didn't even know yet line my favorite color
line I love it very hard to find Swarovski crystal now and if you're finding those beads keep them
in their little packages unless you're going to use them because they're only going to get more
(43:54):
valuable time I have big huge buckets full of them because I've been saving them for years and
every time they went on sale I would like scoop up as many as I could afford but I have lots of
Swarovski crystal beads I'm hoarding them now but I do use them for all kinds of things look on my
Instagram sugar gay is where.com and you'll see that I still talk about that I have lots of Swarovski
(44:15):
crystals and I put them into my products but Swarovski crystal really messed up they should
have had like they sent my jewelry around the world to different Swarovski crystal places
but they wouldn't put my name attached to the piece so I'm like yeah why are we doing this like
send my shit back like if you're not going to like let me attach my name to you know I had people
(44:38):
that were like in New York City at the Swarovski crystal whatever store or whatever and they could
see my pieces there but there was no name so I was like yeah I don't know Swarovski you didn't really
do me very fair I'm not we had lots of discussions but they never could understand that they're
that what they made was exquisite and that really changed now how we make jewelry because we don't
(45:02):
have access to those amazing amazing colors like the purples that they used to had were magnificent
the blues were magnificent the greens I have a customer coming in next week and I'm like
we only had those really amazing Swarovski crystal air night which is one of my favorite color kind
of like oak bottle glass green yeah we don't have that anymore things have changed but we do need
(45:30):
we need a revolution in the handmade jewelry department where they it doesn't have to be
freaking diamonds and guess what all these places that are like using diamonds now they're not
they're using their cz's which are lab grown diamonds that's what a cz is cubic zirconium it's
the same thing and all of these people that are making things are you know yes there's diamonds
(45:55):
for sure but there's also a big colored diamond trend that's going on which is nothing but
cz's I have tons of them I love them I just made a necklace this week and and I want you to go on
to my Instagram to go see it it's yellow so there is a diamond so this is all how it's
(46:16):
going to go around the end of the story is there is a diamond called the yellow rose oh my god the
yellow rose well and it's going to be auctioned it's 202 carats of perfect yellow and it's shaped
like an egg you know egg I'm sure like an egg and it's going to be auctioned at Christie's and
(46:40):
Christie is excited about this because it's the first time that like there's something about it like
that this diamond is starting back where Christie's first started there's some like little trick about
that so it's kind of cool it's actually I did a reel about it on my Instagram I happened to have
sitting on my table a piece it was seven carats smaller so seven carats it's not very much but
(47:06):
it was a beautiful faceted stone hand faceted stone in the same shape almost the exact same size as
this big diamond that they're going to auction next week and at Christie's in New York so I made
a necklace yesterday kind of celebrating that and also because the the thing that it's it kind of like
(47:29):
makes me kind of happy is if you went back in my life to when I opened up my first sugar factory
in Kitchener Ontario and it was this big old building it was fabulous and on the outside I
did a sculpture and it was called the Yellow Rose because I can't really explain it you wouldn't
(47:52):
understand but the Yellow Rose it was like told to me like this is the Yellow Rose this is your
gift this is a big deal and so I had the Yellow Rose on the outside of my building and then I go to
look at this stone that I happen to have a copy of that's being auctioned in New York and I'm
reading all this stuff about Farnham and I'm reading all this stuff about Coons and I'm like
(48:15):
really like immersed in the history of all of this stuff and how it all comes together and how
I'm participating now in some of that same stuff going forward because I'm using the vintage
Swarovski crystal I'm using these vintage plaques that were from actually from Hong Kong from the
1950s they call them cameos but they're not really a cameo in a traditional sense where there's like
(48:38):
a woman in there it's not like that but and some other things and I you know I love this necklace
that I made but I love it because it's the Yellow Rose I called mine the Yellow Rose too after this
big huge stone that was just gorgeous isn't it if you're a yellow person you need this necklace
(49:01):
anyway I am Sugar Gay Isper and you can find me on my podcast here jewelry as your side hustle
and a lot of people that have side hustles it's a very big trend I've been doing this as my full
time job for a really long time but I also teach a class called jewelry as your side hustle where
I teach you the business parts and how to make jewelry so I'm teaching you both so that's where
(49:26):
I really feel very like taken with this jewelry as your side hustle I have a tv show called jewelry
stars by Sugar Gay Isper and I'm Sugar Gay Isper and that's how it starts and then I also am in a
new reality tv show that'll be played on Amazon Prime this summer probably and it's called The
(49:46):
Blocks and it's me and like a hundred other contestants it was way too many that was the one
problem competing to see who's the best entrepreneur and I just sent the guy who started that West
Bergman who was very dear a little necklace from my little my little bunny collection I just had
(50:09):
all these pieces that were played and I put one of those little bunnies on some little pink pearls
for his little daughter who's just adorable because she's not even one yet so she's really cute
but anyway I have a great life making jewelry and I hope that you do too I hope that if you're a
jewelry maker you really like draw it in learn your craft learn the history pick up something
(50:33):
that interests you if you're doing this kind of jewelry learn about it go back in time figure out
how are they doing this 10 years ago were they doing this like what were they doing and really
learned some of the artists that have come before us because they really said the time Collier was
one you know he was an amazing artist that made all these really big huge sculptural hanging
(50:58):
things and he did a line of jewelry that was amazing so easy to replicate because it was just
basically brass that they were like yeah he had a guy that was like hammering this brass and just
making these amazing necklaces and you can see them online look them up like learn about other
artists that are out there and what they're doing and learn how to use some new products and always
(51:19):
keep learning always keep learning and you know you can stay on your path but you can go off your
path you're like oh I had my glass period then after that I had my painting period I painted
everything that is humanly possible to paint I even tried to get the chemical companies down in
Pasadena to let me paint their big oil tankers or they were there oil thing I'm like I don't paint
(51:47):
anything I'm I painted a train a pool I don't know I painted every everything you can think of it
was my painting period and my goal was to have every color of spray paint that they made and I
never got that goal but I still have a lot of spray paint and I tell people if my house catches on
(52:08):
fire evacuate the city because I have a lot of paint but not and I kind of moved in the
street at the ranch so don't worry about that anyway I hope you're having fun making jewelry I hope
you can connect the dots to how jewelry is really essential and that's why it's a 300,000,
(52:31):
333 billion dollar business annually because jewelry is everywhere like I'm pretty sure if you
went to 7-eleven there is some kind of a jewelry there like there's some kind of a jewelry everywhere
like look at those silly little bracelets that Taylor Swift made made famous just a little
some elastic cord and some cheap little beads yeah that's like the zeitgeist of our time
(52:57):
like I'm sure if you're not making them you could and you probably make a lot of money off of them
I have to you know every day keep learning something and making something and
I create a lot of jewelry because it's always changing and I always think the next piece
is going to be my favorite piece or it's going to be the piece that's going to get my the
(53:20):
attention that I'm that I need to my site to move my company forward I'm always learning every piece
that I made I always think wow I'm so glad I made that because I learned a little something else
I'm always striving to constantly make it's I see it in my dreams and wake up in the morning I know
exactly what I'm going to make I have true visions of what I have and I have a lot of product like
(53:48):
I'm sitting on a wealth like it's just like surrounding me it's like so much I could make
anything and I love that I love that like why not I've worked for 20 something years and to be able
to make jewelry and I'm constantly improving and I hope you do too that's really the part of this
(54:09):
I wanted to say this long story that I'm telling you about and and how being a little girl never
even thinking about jewelry never even thinking about glass tippaning company all those kind of things
(54:30):
yep those are good memories I've had a great life because of jewelry
I would have been a lot richer if I hadn't been buying all this shit though regardless I've had a
great life because of jewelry and I hope that in your quest to build this artist need that we have
to create that you come up with something that is remarkable and I hope that you share it with us
(54:57):
please write to me send me something look on my instagram sugar gay is where everything is sugar
gay is where there's a lot of sugar out there there's a lot of gay out there but there's only
one sugar gay is burn so you can find me and I hope you had a great day today I'm trying to see
how much time we had oh yep it's time uh have a great day go see my yellow rose and find me on
(55:24):
instagram and I'll see you in the next podcast have a great day
Welcome to Jewelry as your side hustle with Sugar Gay Yisper and I'm Sugar Gay Yisper.
(00:09):
So welcome.
I'm so glad you're here.
This is going to be a little something different.
Usually I interview other people that are in the jewelry business or a business adjacent,
somebody that might be helping a jewelry business, that kind of thing.
You want to be in my podcast?
Just shoot me an email.
Today I saw something that kind of was like really interesting.
(00:34):
And if you go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and you go to the very end, you're going to see
how I was, I was adjacent.
Like I'm not part of the start, but I'm like right here.
And it's like a really big part of my personal journey.
So let's just jump in.
(00:54):
I'm a very curious person.
I'm always reading everything.
And if I'm reading something, I'm going to like click on it and I'm going to find out
more if it's something that's interesting to me.
I don't even know how this story came to me.
I do.
It was a picture of a necklace, a really amazing necklace.
It was one that was like worn right here.
(01:16):
It was all done out of aquamarines and diamonds.
They call it a paru, paru, paru.
I don't know.
It's a French word for this kind of a necklace.
It's a little bit different necklace.
And it has a great story.
And so I started clicking around and I'm like, wow, this is really a great story because
it's like so much interwoven into the jewelry journey today.
(01:43):
And I'm just so excited to share this with you because it's a really old story.
So let's go back to right after the Civil War was over.
So then 1865, the Civil War was over.
So you can imagine kind of what was going on in that time period.
Lots of things happening.
(02:05):
Lots of things happening.
The war actually, like every war, it like puts money into things that are going on and
then there's like this big rebound afterwards.
And so we're kind of there.
We're in 1965, the war is over.
P.T. Barnum had an exhibit.
(02:27):
This is before he became circus.
So but P.T. Barnum, that guy, he had in 1965 a display of minerals that he had collected
around the world, I guess, while he's circusing.
And a little 10 year old boy saw them and it kind of like changed the course of history.
(02:50):
So the guy was George Kuntz, K-U-N-Z.
And he saw this collection and he was like, Oh my God, it like flipped a switch with him.
If you're a rock person like me, I can imagine sitting there looking at all that going, Oh
my God.
And look at what is in nature.
(03:12):
You have that experience?
Go to a museum and look at some of the specimens that are out there.
I just did the Tucson Gym and Mineral Show.
We're still talking about mineral specimens today.
Well, what was cool about Kuntz is he was like a little business guy, a little entrepreneur.
For his little side hustle, he decided he would make his own collection.
(03:35):
Now during this same time period of when this was happening was also the big engineering
beats that were happening, making the Erie Canal, which was connecting like New York
all the way to the Great Lakes.
So they had to dig up all this earth and move.
It was a big thing.
(03:56):
If you haven't read about it, I have because I have a mother-in-law who is in a 100 year
old plus house that was actually moved back off of the St. Lawrence River during that
time as they dug out the river and made it deeper.
So I know about all that history.
I've seen all the pictures.
I've seen how our house was moved and all the above.
It's really fascinating if you've ever been that area of State of New York, the Erie area.
(04:22):
Give that a try.
So all of that earth moving brought up things that had not really been seen before in the
U.S., so all kinds of mineral specimens.
So this little 10 year old boy is out like hops giving around.
He lived in Brooklyn.
So he's looking around and he's just a little kid and he's picking up all these rocks.
(04:49):
And then when it got to be a thousand rocks, he sold it at that time, which was a great
deal of money, and then he did it again.
And then he did it again.
And then his rocks specimens got even bigger and better and they were selling for thousands
of dollars in those day dollars.
(05:12):
So a lot of money.
He really knew what he was looking for and he was finding amazing things just as a curious
child that had his attention grabbed by P.T.
Barnum.
Pretty fun.
Okay, this story continues.
Well, there's another guy that comes into play at this time.
(05:34):
He is really the point of the story.
His name was Pauling Barnum, like Farm, Farm, George, Pauling Barnum.
And he was just, he was a metallurgist.
He was like self-taught.
He was really, really fine sculptor.
(05:57):
He was actually married to an artist too.
They were like in that time period.
Now we're going to fast forward here to let's see.
1985, so 20 years has now passed since Coons has been binding all of these stones and doing
(06:19):
all this stuff.
Now so Coons goes to Tiffany's and company was very small little thing in New York at
that time.
And the original Tiffany, the father who started the business sees in these stones a possibility
of really doing great things.
(06:39):
Oh my God, it's so great.
So the Coons and Farnham get to know each other.
And so Farnham starts making these amazing pieces of jewelry.
The same time, if you look at this, the line of time that Faberge was coming into play.
(07:00):
So we know that, you know, the metals, they had like figured out things, you know, there
was, you know, even some electricity kind of happening in that time.
You kind of think about what all is happening in that time.
Well Farnham figured out how to carve these stones and make them look like the stems of
a flower.
He knew his stones, but he was also getting all kinds of information and really great
(07:24):
stones from Coons.
Coons at the same time, he gets sent by the US government to become part of this geological
survey that's just going to survey for minerals across the wherever it was, like just say
upstate New York, because they were in that area.
So he becomes now a super rich resource for Tiffany's because he knows all the stones,
(07:50):
where they're from, how he can get more, what they're worth, like he knows all kinds of
stuff.
And so now he's giving that information to the US government, but the government in
exchange for that is letting him into this circle so that he can like spread the word
and they can like learn more about it from him, like, because he's been doing this now
(08:11):
for 20 years, so if it's smart.
So think about that.
So he's supplying the stones.
He went down to Mexico, for example, there's one mine down there, it's probably still there,
it does fire opal and he was spending $1,000 a stone for fire opal and he made a beautiful
(08:32):
necklace out of these fire opals, which nobody had ever seen before.
And that's still in the Tiffany's warehouses somewhere, like because it was such a priceless
piece it never got sold it was just considered to be, you know, a really a masterpiece.
So Coons and Farnham are great friends because they are building this Tiffany Empire, all
(08:57):
at the same time working in collaboration.
And if you go in if you look at some of the drawings, they're really based on nature so
lots of flowers and butterflies and, you know, just the floral things and things that we
still think of today as beautiful the birds, you know, nature so, you know, this is pre
(09:18):
Nouveau so there wasn't any of that like just like styling going on.
It was simply think Faberge eggs and how intricate they were.
And so the same scale in the US, that's happening now.
They took some of these pieces that Farnham had made including this one awkward Marine
necklace that I saw the parade, and it went to the, the great exposition in Paris that
(09:45):
happened when the Eiffel Tower was opened up.
And so they had like the best of all the world.
And this piece was part of them but there was a little bit of kind of the, the, the general
public that came to come see these pieces.
Yes, they were amazing, but the Faberge eggs kind of like talked up, you know, the votes.
(10:09):
So when they came back to the US, and Farnham kept working, their original Tiffany's Lewis
comfort Tiffany died and his son takes over and his son has a whole different way of how
he wants things to happen and what the design should be and, you know, how things artists
(10:33):
in, you know, the stained glass, for example, that was kind of started by the father and
things were kind of, you know, put together in really unusual ways and it was Tiffany's
so, you know, they had lots of money.
But the same time, Coons was writing these amazing books for Tiffany's.
Let me just read you the title of one of the books because they would do this every year
(10:56):
he would have like for their best customers, these books that Tiffany's would put out of,
you know, all their great things over the year was, you know, like a sample book basically,
I would love to see one.
So one of the books was called the etiquette of gyms.
I love that.
Natural natal stones, meaning you're kind of like your birthstone and natal stone sentiments.
(11:20):
So diamonds would be not having even come into play at this point really is the diamond
ring of choice for weddings and superstitions associated with precious stones.
So that was like one book that so actually Farnham got a PhD in gemology at that time
(11:41):
like he was really like leading the science he was the science at that time.
He wrote 300 papers and books and he was, you know, very much part of that whole thing
that really brought stones up to something that were beautiful and could they go back
like stones go back to ancient times, thousands and thousands of years ago they're making
(12:05):
little finding little stones and when they figured out gold and how to like put a hole
in it like stones have been around for a long time.
But these two guys in the US bumped into their game.
So you have to think Goons was writing stories and books and articles and got a PhD and like
he was really the pusher of all things great that Tiffany's got a hold of.
(12:31):
He had the inside scoop and that really helped Tiffany's grow too because in Tiffany's knew
how much stocks there were on, you know, a stock being like how much what was the supply
like on, you know, hercumium diamonds are from that area.
They're not really diamonds.
They're really just a super clear quartz quartz, but they look like diamonds.
(12:52):
They're so beautiful.
So these kind of things are all kind of happening all simultaneously and then Farham and Tiffany's
lose their their interest together because the new son of the two is running Tiffany's
doesn't want the old guy in there.
He wants to have his own stuff.
(13:13):
So out he goes and basically goes away into obscurity.
His pieces are signed and that was really the only thing that kind of saved him from
like never being found again because people do know of his works.
This is actually how I found him because there was one of those antique road shows and it
(13:35):
was talking about this necklaces this lady came in with and she was like really surprised
like, I don't know what this thing is this bar and I'm guy and they're like, well, hold
the phone, that's more like a gazillion dollars because it was one of the original Tiffany
pieces that was actually signed by him.
So that was pretty cute.
That was pretty amazing.
(13:56):
So this is what Kuntz said about the stones at that time that he was finding when he was
a young person.
The engineering projects brought up the fresh virgin soil and by the mid 1920s serious collections
were like way by his 1920 the serious collections were so valuable at that time.
(14:22):
I love that.
I love that that it goes so far back and that we do know a lot of his pieces.
You really need to look them up like he would like carve the stem so they would be rounded
in a pen and he would like put hinges on things.
So there was that movement which was something that Faberge was doing.
Faberge would put a little trimmer, a trimmer, trimmer door and in a crown so that from
(14:48):
across the room that crown was really lighting, you know, hitting the light, the candle, obruses
were really lighting up that person that was wearing that crown.
So all that technology of being able to put a little hinge on something, it still happens
today but they were the ones that were starting this these really Faberge and a far enough.
(15:14):
So we love that about them.
I think that that was pretty amazing.
Now let me tell you how how's that really today.
So back in 1976 I was in seventh grade, eighth grade somewhere there maybe I was in eighth
grade right and I'm standing out at the school bus waiting for my mother or something and
(15:39):
a little friend of mine who was a one year younger J Rockaway H J Rockaway Harold J Rockaway
who's passed on now but he was a very dear friend of mine and you know we just have all
this great all this great fun life about about to happen in front of us so we're all happy
little kids and he says something about oh my mother has these these figurines it was
(16:10):
Christmas time these figurines from the the crash and then she's she's done them in gold
and they're in Tiffany's windows and I was like what oh okay well I knew where Tiffany's
was I'd been there a million times I've been in the gallery in Houston since it first
(16:31):
opened like it was a part of our life was to go to the malls back then right and the
gallery I had a great ice skating rink so you would go there and and then right outside
of Neiman's was Tiffany's and actually it was down the hall until they moved a little
bit into a bigger location and I started watching those windows.
(16:54):
Until I was 28 years so we're talking about like 13 to 28 so good 15 years I've been watching
the windows of Tiffany's just because I'm so curious to see what all they put in there
like I had no idea that people could actually like put things in Tiffany's windows so and
(17:15):
that year I don't know what year was so on like 28 29 30 in that general I had my glass
period and I say that it's like artists go through their you know their things where
they're like super enriched with that like whatever they're learning about and mine
happened to be glass at the time not blowing glass or melting glass but sculpting with
(17:41):
glass for sure and I came upon this place which is still part of my life today if they
only knew it was a really old warehouse in Pasadena Texas it had almost no light it was
like dark you had to bring a flashlight and you had to wear rubber boots because at times
(18:03):
if it had rained the water was up to your ankles in this old warehouse can you believe
that they had been making stained glass windows there for you know 40 years in this old factory
this old you know this old place and they had these really old tiles there they're
(18:27):
like probably like a foot by like eight inches and they're they're really thick and they
were they brought them over from England that's where they're originally made and so they
would chop those up and then the stained glass windows come in two kinds they come in the
kind with the copper and the soldering you know the flat stained glass that you're used
(18:48):
to and then there's also if you look at churches they have this like chunky kind of glass that
set into a black epoxy or an epoxy kind of a product that would harden and keep the stones
in and then they would like sand and put this black gravelly kind of sand on top and that's
what held the glass into these big stained glass windows so there's this two kind and
(19:11):
they were making both of those so they had a huge amount of excess product and because
I was like I don't know doctor's wife and I had nothing else to do but make really cool
shit I was in there like so many times I would just come with like a huge bucket and I'd
be like okay how much is this bucket and then I'd bring like more buckets and then
(19:36):
more buckets and all of a sudden I had like all of this glass and I'm making things with
them I made like things for aquariums where the little fishies could like swim through
little glass sculptures and they were because it was all done with a silicone it was all
(19:56):
friendly for fish and so I made these things and then they got bigger and bigger and then
I'm like making I'm like putting glass everywhere like glass became my theme at that same time
I went up to Arkansas to go visit my grandparents and on the side of the road was a rock chop
(20:20):
and they had all of this turquoise glass it's from the insulators that were on the electrical
poles it's kind of like that blue green glass you might have seen them before but this was
the slag glass that when they stopped making those glass insulators and switched over to
a ceramic insulator for electrical poles then they had to like get rid of all this glass
(20:43):
and it was like a million pounds of slag glass they just brought brought it up into chunks
through in the back of a big dump truck or truck essentially and then they would go scur
around to rock shops and sell it by the by the pound okay so I found this rock shop I
used with my grandfather and I'm like oh my god I gotta have that I used every penny
(21:08):
that was in my purse this is before we had like debit cards maybe we had debt we must
have had debit cards but on the side of the road at a rock shop if I can use your debt
card you're gonna use your cash I had two little kids and I was in Arkansas and I had
to drive all the way back to Houston I had must have had a gas card but I didn't have
(21:31):
one penny in my pocket because I spent it all on this glass it was fabulous so now I'm
like really rich with amazing glass there's a point to the story so I made some sculptures
and they are really cool and I called Tiffany's I'm like you know back when I was in junior
(21:55):
high school I talked to somebody whose mother had her pieces in the Tiffany's windows and
I've been trying really hard to think of something that would be equally as cool and unique to
the world that had never been seen before these glass sculptures that I'm making are
it so can I come show you the girl was like yeah I don't know this is like we don't really
(22:18):
do that I'm like I promise you they're cool she's like okay bring me something okay so
I came in Tiffany's at this point had forgot how many windows it was maybe like six windows
instead of the original two because they had expanded so she loved them she's like okay
(22:43):
we have six windows I need you to make I need you to come back by like next week they always
never give you a deadline it's like next week is that fine I'm like yeah no problem so of
course I brought the coolest shit for my windows for Tiffany's it was a really big deal I worked
(23:06):
with her on placing the jewelry in the windows but I didn't pick out you know what went where
and how things went I just kind of like okay here's this piece okay and whatever we're
gonna do with it okay well here's Elise Peretti was really a big designer at Tiffany she's
(23:27):
the one that did the open heart the little that's Elise Peretti and then also Picasso
Paloma Picasso had a collection that was all like really juicy gems juicy combinations
of Tiffany's gyms so those were the two women so it was kind of decided okay we're gonna
(23:47):
really focus on making the windows with these juicy gems that go with this class sculptures
that I had brought in they were so cool like it was really fun like I took my kids to go show them
we took pictures I had another friend that took really good pictures I think there's
(24:10):
probably one of them here in the studio somewhere I don't know I know I have it because it's a legacy
piece and yeah I ended up well I'll tell you about that man the rest of the story so it was a really
big deal and I was really excited well when I came back home I had kind of like you know I had laid
out all the different kind of color combinations that I kind of liked and there was one more
(24:34):
that I could make and it was little like a little maybe that big a little so I had a piece of glass
down and then I took all of these little cuts that I got from this warehouse that were just like
little sticks of all different kinds of colors of pinks and purples and you know it was really some
(24:55):
vibe in this old glass so the glass is the story of this and you know you just kind of make kind of
looks kind of like a a downtown landscape kind of like you know it's just like tall buildings kind
of like if you looked over Manhattan you would see all those buildings and that's kind of what
the sculpture looked like like little things but very delicate and dainty and pinks and purples
(25:17):
and I was going to give that to the girl who agreed that I could have my sculptures in Tiffany's
windows so I get there and I'm like kind of like skipping through I've got my little son with me
he's probably like two or three and he went everywhere with me he was just such a little joy
and he ends up being a really really good designer himself and I think it's because he was always
(25:43):
with his mother and we were like little pals so we're kind of like looking at the windows and I'm
like oh wait something is wrong because like that's not the piece of jewelry that we had on that
window like what's that and then I went to the next windows we're like walking down that was on
the outside of the building is where they had these some of these windows and then some inside in the
(26:07):
mall and I'm like well that's wrong and then I like look at one window and I'm like something
terrible has gone wrong because everything was like it was just kind of like something was wrong
it was everything was upside down it did not make sense to me I had just seen it like two days
before and it was all beautiful and now I go inside there's like the president of tiffanese
(26:36):
the head of security the head of security's assistant the head of this the head of this
and they're all these men lined up they had taken their red eye from new york to come to this tiffanese
because somebody had taken this is what they told me a tire iron and smashed one of the windows
(27:00):
that had like this elizabeth taylor necklace line that was worth like a quarter of a million
dollars on one of my sculptures and the president of tiffanese looks at me and I've got this little
tiny thing in front of me it's so cute and the girl from tiffanese that I had been working with
I can't remember her name now but she's irrelevant she kind of looks at me and says you know do not
(27:22):
give that to me okay gotcha so when the president of tiffanese is talking to me he's like did you
know that there was no security on that window when you put that quarter of a million dollar
necklace in there I was like no sir there's no way I could have known that and I really I didn't
pick the jewelry I just brought the sculptures in a little bit more back and forth they had to
(27:47):
like check me out to make sure I wasn't involved in that heist yes I wasn't involved I had nothing
to do with it I did not know that there was one window that we put the most valuable necklace
in there and somebody smashed the window grab take the necklace so that's why all the jewelry
had changed they had all put like little tiny things in there instead of these wow so we at
(28:10):
least I had good photos of it one time I was there so then we're chatting up and I'm like talking to
the guy and he's really nice and and I appreciated you know that you know he was nice to me so I had
this little sculpture so I'm like oh but I made you a little sculpture and then he looks at me
really serious and he goes how did you know that my living room was pink and purple I was like there's
(28:33):
no way I would know that your living room was pink and purple it just worked out we ended up writing
me the nicest note that I still have tucked away because he was like okay you're like a visionary
you like nailed me I'm like I didn't it was just happenstance and he ended up putting that sculpture
on his mantle he said and he thought about me often and it was great so now with that there became
(29:03):
another little issue and I ended up working for Tiffany's for quite a while after that
bringing them things that we could do the wind as in but after about I don't know
like two years John Loring who was the director of Tiffany's and a very prolific artist himself
(29:28):
and also a writer of one of the books on the Pauling, Farnam and Coontz information his books
that he wrote about that time period and he brought out of the vaults all these amazing sketches
and things that Pauling had done so so he's so the head of Tiffany's that I never got to meet
(29:54):
but he was in charge of all the visuals for Tiffany's and he had written a book on Pauling and Coontz
and talking about all the things that happened during that time period and it must have been an
amazing book like it must have written itself I mean he has access to everything in the vaults
(30:14):
that Tiffany's has so that was kind of cool but John Loring decided after my little fiasco at the
Tiffany's in Houston that from after this was like probably like two years after it came down from
the top it took him like a while to figure out like what are we gonna do what are we gonna do
(30:37):
and this girl in Houston she's like doing all this stuff for the windows and it was great it was like
the best time of my life I had so much fun we did like Christmas things and the little reindeer
we put little reindeer yeah it was like we used like salt to create and salt and sugar to create the
(30:57):
the snow and the little things and you know it's all about the whole point of Tiffany's windows
and this is why jewelry if you're out there selling your jewelry this is important and this
is what I my credence is was from that time period where it's all about making a customer stop who's
walking by and just go whoa what's that and look a little bit deeper maybe it's just for three seconds
(31:25):
but that time that they're stopping and looking and the little details that we would put into the
windows same thing with Bergman Goodman word off Goodman now these the window people people that
design windows are really good at looking at like the minute little detail that you make you know
but they're not just sticking a diamond right in the center of the window they're creating a story
(31:50):
that draws you in so that you find like where is that piece of jewelry I know there's got a piece
piece of jewelry in here so where is it and then you kind of have to look and you go oh right there
there it is it's that you don't put it in the most noticeable place you put it where they they're
kind of have to like interact with the window in order to do that I ended up with a company called
(32:14):
away with windows and I designed window treatments for you know other kind of stores mostly jewelry
stores but other kind of stores too I was like my gig for a while because I really liked them
but back to John Lorring so John Lorring came down with an edict because I just kind of like
showed up at Tiffany's one day and I'm like okay you know do we have another project coming up
(32:35):
like what are we going to do and what can I do for you and always subservient like these are the
people that I'm working for and because now it came down from John that from now on he would
design all the windows to be one design and it would go across all the stores across Tiffany and
we're going to have one look and it's going to be one thing and there's not going to be any of this
(32:57):
fluffy stuff and we're not going to be losing half a million dollar quarter of a million dollar
necklaces off the side because you know somebody didn't do it right that was a sad sad day for me
because I ended my little my little time to shine which had started back when I was you know in
seventh grade and now I got to like do this thing and I really enjoyed it and it was such a gift
(33:20):
and I had so much fun and you know it was really a feather in my cap during that time period and
it was a really fun time period where I really got to explore glass well still that glass I have a
big sculpture at the ranch that I use those big glasses for and I'm still collecting glass I don't
know what it's about but I think resin has a lot of this glass like properties you know so I know
(33:46):
that in my jewelry these earrings for example like they're stones and they're set in resin
can you see how pretty they are oh my god they're so gorgeous but you know all of these stones and
all this stuff that we work with as jewelers it has legacy it has legs it goes all the way back to
you know ancient times of first beads that they know that they ever found were of an ostrich egg
(34:14):
do I have them here uh there's somewhere ostrich egg beads which have you ever tried to cut an ostrich
into a bead with a rock another rock that's all you got because there was no metal back then
this is like stone age times they're making things to bedazzle themselves and it was an
(34:37):
ostrich egg was it kind of not easy but I've tried to cut an ostrich egg and I had to get a tile
cutter to cut through them they are so strong remember they get they're gonna fall out and down
onto the ground when they're when they're I don't know what do you say when they're birthed you know
(35:01):
they are so hard to to think that you could like shatter an egg and then take those little tiny pieces
and then chip them down even smaller so they're a little tiny half an inch and then put a hole in them
with another rock that's going to have like a little point in there and it's it's like it's not
like metal but it's so close to metal I I just I implore you to get an ostrich egg the next time
(35:27):
you see one pick it up and go could I take a rock and make it make this which is like curved
into a bead like a little tiny bead yeah I have some that I bought in South Africa my son lives there
and he gives me lots of Easter egg ostrich eggs and and I've done a lot of things for a company
(35:50):
here in town where we use those ostrich eggs and made centerpieces on tables and I don't know I've
done a million different things with those ostrich eggs I have a couple of them right over there so
I love this part about jewelry about it is connected to our ancient past certainly our
ancient past people were adoring themselves have you ever been to LaBear tar pits in
(36:17):
in LA it's right in the middle of the town it's like right on Wiltshire Boulevard right it's like
right there where all the stuff is happening there's this amazing museum that's where you know
California is oil town like it's an oil city there's oil derricks all over LA and there was
(36:38):
this one area where that tar was constantly there from the beginning of time from eons and eons
and it would trap things would fall into this so I don't know I don't want to say it wrong but the
little creatures big creatures people so it must have been like maybe it had like a topping of
(37:01):
water on it I think that's where it was and all the animals would come to get this water but
once they were like shoved into the water or you know there's like a fight or you know they're like
trying to get each other kill each other because you know that's what they did then once they fell
into this water and they fell down into that tar they just became part of the tar so now that they're
(37:24):
excavating this really old tar pit that was you know from you know tens of thousands or I don't
know if it goes back how far it goes back I do because I took tons of pictures of all the reference
material but there was one picture that I took a picture of and it was they you know they found
the remains of a woman a full skeleton because you know she was in the tar but then she also had
(37:48):
a necklace on and you know they would have known it would have been like senior because
they didn't have chains back then so it would have been like you know gut or something like that or
some kind of a thing that they would have woven like maybe braided some I don't know what they were
doing but then she had these little dangle things very much like a necklace I would make today like
(38:10):
you know with a you know things that could be put on a necklace that represented her tribe or
what she liked or things that she found something like that just like we do today yeah nothing has
changed nothing has changed we are people that adorn ourselves you know I also want to talk about
(38:30):
well this week was the Met Gala and back to New York again I saw beautiful gowns I saw beautiful
people wearing beautiful grounds I saw some really a lot of weird like why are we wearing all this
naked stuff like just put something nice on your body don't try to like we are not turned on by your
(38:56):
senior butt like just wear a pretty something because that's what you're there for it was supposed
to be a theme you're supposed to go with the theme and the theme was kind of archaic they need to
like make that theme a little bit easier for people to translate into something that's the
number one problem and then you know it's all about the show and it's all about the drama and you
know Kim Kardashian her and her little midget waist which is just kind of an extreme I would have
(39:21):
rather have seen beautiful gowns like there were there were some amazing gowns did you see some
of those gowns they're really pretty and then you see all the diamonds because of course that's how
these celebrities get there is because they're really like sponsored by Chanel and Carl Lagerfeld
and all those big brands and who make the dress for them and you know pay for their
(39:45):
rights to go to the table and you know be part of the scene and be seen and the publicity is what
they're buying by having the star or star or actor actress actor wearing these amazing gowns and then
they're diamond jewelry I say let's have a different category and I'm going to see this for the Oscars
(40:08):
too let's have it where it's like let's have some really cool shit in the jewelry department happening
there because it's not like the Swarovski crystal had a beautiful outfit the necklace was okay
it wasn't great it was like something I would have done 10 years ago like really Swarovski crystal
(40:30):
get your shit together yeah that's why you don't make beads anymore because you never could understand
how to use your amazing product you had beads in colors and shapes and sizes and I had them all
I loved them I love Swarovski crystal I bought into it I remember the first time that one of my
(40:53):
customers was wearing one of my bracelets and I told her what all the beads were and they were
amazing and they all had a history and they were all old and vintage and never been used before
but I threw on a couple of Swarovski crystals because I don't know I bought them
and I remember her going oh look at that that's a Swarovski crystal I was like okay from now on
(41:16):
it's all Swarovski crystals because she didn't care that much about how vintage it was I have so
many old things that are around here I can't even tell you what it is oh really old African beads
that are from recycled ones which I'm doing an African store next so that's kind of that's a good
(41:36):
thing for me to pick up because now I know where those are but anyway so the point is is that
we need to like value interesting jewelry as much as these bespoke gowns now Hermes picked me as one
of the top 50 artisans in all of Texas that's saying something like I put in my great 20 years
(41:58):
of working with all kinds of beads especially Swarovski crystal and fossils minerals gems pearls
those kind of things but when Swarovski crystals stopped making those it was because they made the
marketing mistake to not promote their product except for a little tiny four millimeter bicone
(42:19):
beads and I know this because I've talked to all those people in fact I had Fire Mountain Gyms who
is one of my suppliers and I love them dearly and I got to meet the owners one time and they know me
they love me like we've been as I've been a platinum partner there for years and they called me and
said hey let's do something together I'm like let's do something together but they even they did not
(42:44):
understand and they're like kind of complicit too is that they would have these big contests
and the contest winners were always the four millimeter bicone bead that's the little triangle
kind of a bead it's got a hole in it but it's like kind of triangular and soft soft it's not easy to
wear I don't like that little sharp edge on my jewelry I like the rounded faucet of beads because
(43:08):
if they're they're they're going to touch your skin it's not going to be that sharp little edge of
that bead hurting you but these people that were winning would have like a million of one color
of this four millimeter bicone bead and like just pulled my hair out I'm like what are you freaking
doing like show your creativity by using the beauty of Swarovski crystal beads and I was a
(43:32):
vetted partner with Swarovski crystal I signed the documents I went there I know them and I even
knew one of the colors that the guy that was signing me didn't even know yet line my favorite color
line I love it very hard to find Swarovski crystal now and if you're finding those beads keep them
in their little packages unless you're going to use them because they're only going to get more
(43:54):
valuable time I have big huge buckets full of them because I've been saving them for years and
every time they went on sale I would like scoop up as many as I could afford but I have lots of
Swarovski crystal beads I'm hoarding them now but I do use them for all kinds of things look on my
Instagram sugar gay is where.com and you'll see that I still talk about that I have lots of Swarovski
(44:15):
crystals and I put them into my products but Swarovski crystal really messed up they should
have had like they sent my jewelry around the world to different Swarovski crystal places
but they wouldn't put my name attached to the piece so I'm like yeah why are we doing this like
send my shit back like if you're not going to like let me attach my name to you know I had people
(44:38):
that were like in New York City at the Swarovski crystal whatever store or whatever and they could
see my pieces there but there was no name so I was like yeah I don't know Swarovski you didn't really
do me very fair I'm not we had lots of discussions but they never could understand that they're
that what they made was exquisite and that really changed now how we make jewelry because we don't
(45:02):
have access to those amazing amazing colors like the purples that they used to had were magnificent
the blues were magnificent the greens I have a customer coming in next week and I'm like
we only had those really amazing Swarovski crystal air night which is one of my favorite color kind
of like oak bottle glass green yeah we don't have that anymore things have changed but we do need
(45:30):
we need a revolution in the handmade jewelry department where they it doesn't have to be
freaking diamonds and guess what all these places that are like using diamonds now they're not
they're using their cz's which are lab grown diamonds that's what a cz is cubic zirconium it's
the same thing and all of these people that are making things are you know yes there's diamonds
(45:55):
for sure but there's also a big colored diamond trend that's going on which is nothing but
cz's I have tons of them I love them I just made a necklace this week and and I want you to go on
to my Instagram to go see it it's yellow so there is a diamond so this is all how it's
(46:16):
going to go around the end of the story is there is a diamond called the yellow rose oh my god the
yellow rose well and it's going to be auctioned it's 202 carats of perfect yellow and it's shaped
like an egg you know egg I'm sure like an egg and it's going to be auctioned at Christie's and
(46:40):
Christie is excited about this because it's the first time that like there's something about it like
that this diamond is starting back where Christie's first started there's some like little trick about
that so it's kind of cool it's actually I did a reel about it on my Instagram I happened to have
sitting on my table a piece it was seven carats smaller so seven carats it's not very much but
(47:06):
it was a beautiful faceted stone hand faceted stone in the same shape almost the exact same size as
this big diamond that they're going to auction next week and at Christie's in New York so I made
a necklace yesterday kind of celebrating that and also because the the thing that it's it kind of like
(47:29):
makes me kind of happy is if you went back in my life to when I opened up my first sugar factory
in Kitchener Ontario and it was this big old building it was fabulous and on the outside I
did a sculpture and it was called the Yellow Rose because I can't really explain it you wouldn't
(47:52):
understand but the Yellow Rose it was like told to me like this is the Yellow Rose this is your
gift this is a big deal and so I had the Yellow Rose on the outside of my building and then I go to
look at this stone that I happen to have a copy of that's being auctioned in New York and I'm
reading all this stuff about Farnham and I'm reading all this stuff about Coons and I'm like
(48:15):
really like immersed in the history of all of this stuff and how it all comes together and how
I'm participating now in some of that same stuff going forward because I'm using the vintage
Swarovski crystal I'm using these vintage plaques that were from actually from Hong Kong from the
1950s they call them cameos but they're not really a cameo in a traditional sense where there's like
(48:38):
a woman in there it's not like that but and some other things and I you know I love this necklace
that I made but I love it because it's the Yellow Rose I called mine the Yellow Rose too after this
big huge stone that was just gorgeous isn't it if you're a yellow person you need this necklace
(49:01):
anyway I am Sugar Gay Isper and you can find me on my podcast here jewelry as your side hustle
and a lot of people that have side hustles it's a very big trend I've been doing this as my full
time job for a really long time but I also teach a class called jewelry as your side hustle where
I teach you the business parts and how to make jewelry so I'm teaching you both so that's where
(49:26):
I really feel very like taken with this jewelry as your side hustle I have a tv show called jewelry
stars by Sugar Gay Isper and I'm Sugar Gay Isper and that's how it starts and then I also am in a
new reality tv show that'll be played on Amazon Prime this summer probably and it's called The
(49:46):
Blocks and it's me and like a hundred other contestants it was way too many that was the one
problem competing to see who's the best entrepreneur and I just sent the guy who started that West
Bergman who was very dear a little necklace from my little my little bunny collection I just had
(50:09):
all these pieces that were played and I put one of those little bunnies on some little pink pearls
for his little daughter who's just adorable because she's not even one yet so she's really cute
but anyway I have a great life making jewelry and I hope that you do too I hope that if you're a
jewelry maker you really like draw it in learn your craft learn the history pick up something
(50:33):
that interests you if you're doing this kind of jewelry learn about it go back in time figure out
how are they doing this 10 years ago were they doing this like what were they doing and really
learned some of the artists that have come before us because they really said the time Collier was
one you know he was an amazing artist that made all these really big huge sculptural hanging
(50:58):
things and he did a line of jewelry that was amazing so easy to replicate because it was just
basically brass that they were like yeah he had a guy that was like hammering this brass and just
making these amazing necklaces and you can see them online look them up like learn about other
artists that are out there and what they're doing and learn how to use some new products and always
(51:19):
keep learning always keep learning and you know you can stay on your path but you can go off your
path you're like oh I had my glass period then after that I had my painting period I painted
everything that is humanly possible to paint I even tried to get the chemical companies down in
Pasadena to let me paint their big oil tankers or they were there oil thing I'm like I don't paint
(51:47):
anything I'm I painted a train a pool I don't know I painted every everything you can think of it
was my painting period and my goal was to have every color of spray paint that they made and I
never got that goal but I still have a lot of spray paint and I tell people if my house catches on
(52:08):
fire evacuate the city because I have a lot of paint but not and I kind of moved in the
street at the ranch so don't worry about that anyway I hope you're having fun making jewelry I hope
you can connect the dots to how jewelry is really essential and that's why it's a 300,000,
(52:31):
333 billion dollar business annually because jewelry is everywhere like I'm pretty sure if you
went to 7-eleven there is some kind of a jewelry there like there's some kind of a jewelry everywhere
like look at those silly little bracelets that Taylor Swift made made famous just a little
some elastic cord and some cheap little beads yeah that's like the zeitgeist of our time
(52:57):
like I'm sure if you're not making them you could and you probably make a lot of money off of them
I have to you know every day keep learning something and making something and
I create a lot of jewelry because it's always changing and I always think the next piece
is going to be my favorite piece or it's going to be the piece that's going to get my the
(53:20):
attention that I'm that I need to my site to move my company forward I'm always learning every piece
that I made I always think wow I'm so glad I made that because I learned a little something else
I'm always striving to constantly make it's I see it in my dreams and wake up in the morning I know
exactly what I'm going to make I have true visions of what I have and I have a lot of product like
(53:48):
I'm sitting on a wealth like it's just like surrounding me it's like so much I could make
anything and I love that I love that like why not I've worked for 20 something years and to be able
to make jewelry and I'm constantly improving and I hope you do too that's really the part of this
(54:09):
I wanted to say this long story that I'm telling you about and and how being a little girl never
even thinking about jewelry never even thinking about glass tippaning company all those kind of things
(54:30):
yep those are good memories I've had a great life because of jewelry
I would have been a lot richer if I hadn't been buying all this shit though regardless I've had a
great life because of jewelry and I hope that in your quest to build this artist need that we have
to create that you come up with something that is remarkable and I hope that you share it with us
(54:57):
please write to me send me something look on my instagram sugar gay is where everything is sugar
gay is where there's a lot of sugar out there there's a lot of gay out there but there's only
one sugar gay is burn so you can find me and I hope you had a great day today I'm trying to see
how much time we had oh yep it's time uh have a great day go see my yellow rose and find me on
(55:24):
instagram and I'll see you in the next podcast have a great day
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