Charleston Designs

Kupel River stays in all sterling silver and the Ashley River is hand-oiled with 18-carat gold. For people who know the South Carolina Low Country, there's a lot that is familiar in the jewelry produced by Sweet Charleston Designs. We're looking at our Bulls Bay necklace. By Mother's Day, there will be 18 different lines of jewelry, all named after rivers, creeks or bays. Our signature piece is the Sea Wee Bay collection. That naming system started with the waters around Charleston and has expanded outward. This particular collection is called the Savannah River collection. We chose that to be our launch for adding pearls because of shells that were harvested from the Savannah River and shipped overseas to cultivate the first-cultured pearls. There'something else about the jewelry, though. Those patterns, that look, it's all based upon the designs found in the sweetgrass baskets that are made in the Low Country. We really hope to bring more education into the company and helping bring more awareness to the art form through the jewelry. I think the jewelry in and of itself is beautiful and the design is absolutely gorgeous, but the story and the history that is woven into the jewelry and the baskets is just priceless. This is the case with many people. Angie Buxton was enthralled with the baskets the first time she ever saw them. They're just lovely pieces of art, but when I learned about the history, it just gave me gooseb The art form came from Africa and involved one person, their two hands and blades of grass. Woven together, that grass created something beautiful and provided a link to the basketmaker's ancestors. It's a bit of living history on display now, but its future might be in peril. Sweetgrass baskets in this format came out of West Africa, but the descendants are kind of, they're dying away and the younger people are not so interested. Once I found out that it was possibly a dying art, I just wanted to do something to try to help the preservation with that. The motivation behind Sweet Charleston designs them was to mimic the basket patterns, in turn honoring the makers and drawing attention to the art form. Angie just decided to take this unique art and use a different medi I felt that if we took this craft and promoted it from an educational standpoint, that would be very important to do. Angie got things started, seeing what it would take to manufacture a piece of jewelry based on a design made of sweetgrass. The first piece that I did actually just made out of clay. It was a bracelet that was a copy of the actual bracelet that was made out of sweetgrass and I just tried to mimic the design of the sweetgrass basket bracelet. The result was that she found that the weave pattern of the bracelet and in turn the baskets lent itself well to being duplicated in silver and gold. The basket came first and the basket weave design is not something that we came up with. I just took it and copied it and again just put it into a different medi It took a lot of time in talking with jewelry designers and silversmiths to try to figure out the best way and if this could even be done. It did work and so sweet Charleston designs took off. Janie Manning came on as a volunteer and then became a full partner. The two worked together to design the lines that they now have in place and they continue to see what they can come up with going forward. We're constantly brainstorming, talking about different baskets patterns in particular, what works what doesn't work and just because we draw it and we think it would look great doesn't mean it's a workable functional piece of jewelry. For the finished products Janie and Angie wanted to source all the materials and have all the work done in the U. S. We are adamant about keeping the manufacturing of the product and our jewelry in the United States. We are working with a casting house that's on the east coast. We also purchase all of our materials from U. S. based companies. The desire is to keep as many Americans employed as possible with their product. That goes as far as the company refusing to sell online instead selling only through jewelry stores. We feel that the stores have a place in society, they have a place in commerce and I just want people to be employed in the United States. It may be a little corny but that's how we feel. Angie and Janie have found success. The jewelry is available in 30 stores covering four states. It's been a real easy product to sell. People are coming to us, they're calling us and asking us for a product and they seem to love the story, the history behind the baskets and asking us always what's next, what's next. Their work starts at around $100 and ranges up to $2,000 for a single piece. In this economy we've been very, very surprised that someone is willing to pay sometimes for the higher end pieces that actually have the gold woven in them. Sweet Charleston Designs is on quite a ride coming a long way in a short period of time. Some days I'm shocked primarily because were just two women on the mission and it's amazing to see it actually grow into a business. The hope is that it will all be much bigger in the years ahead. A five year plan is just to grow the business with our lines of jewelry and to be more globally recognized, take the story far and wide. The more success there is for Angie and Janie, the better it will be for the basket makers and for the preservation of sweetgrass and the art form. That's what I want to do, that's what I'm determined to do is to help preserve this art form and help promote the artists themselves.