Randi Chervitz has an artistic spirit that has been with her since she was a child. It led her through many phases of her life, to her career as a jeweler and textile artist, and to her role as an adjunct professor at Lindenwood University.
“I was an art kid – a 3D person, and I got positive feedback,” she said.
She was encouraged.
In pre-school, she was making sock puppets. In high school, she was making bead bracelets, which was the first time she ever sold jewelry. By the time she got to college at Parsons in New York City, she thought she wanted to go into fashion design.
“But I was intimidated. Many students had more experience that I did – with things like choosing fabric swatches and sketching designs,” she said. “It seemed scary to try and compete. I ended up choosing jewelry design instead, and one of my teachers quickly got us working with metals.”
She was inspired.
Then she met her husband, who was from St. Louis. He had a fine art’s degree in sculpture and wanted to attend Southern Illinois University Carbondale to further his training.
They moved to Illinois, and Chervitz earned a Bachelor of Fine Art’s degree at SIUC.
“By that time, I knew I wanted to make my living making jewelry,” Chervitz said.
Now, this was the early ‘90s, and the internet was not used as it is today, but she had a business model in her head.
She had grown up in Creve Coeur and Town & Country, Missouri, and went to Parkway High School, and then graduated from Crossroads College Prep, which she said was a very cool experience. Now a Kirkwood resident, when she and her then-husband first moved back, they lived in a renovated church in Benton Park as some of the early urban pioneers – “Very artsy and progressive, at the time,” she said.
Professionally, she began to focus on using a fiber technique in metal, and created her company, Uncommon Threads. She literally began crocheting in metal.
“My grandma taught me to knit when I was a little girl,” she said. “I use a crochet hook that was hers, and I’ve basically created and taught myself this technique,” though she added it is fair to say there is influence of others in some things she does.
She knows of two other women in the United States who use fiber techniques in metal. Both are well-known artists working in academia: Arlene Fisch, who has published books on the subject, and Mary Lee Hu, who uses a basketry technique, and who Chervitz studied with in North Carolina.
“And I’ve learned so much from my customers, just by them asking for what they want,” she said. “I do a lot of custom pieces.”
She solders and fabricates each piece of jewelry. Her technique involves crocheting .99 or .925 sterling silver or 18K gold to create earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings.
“People like the fiber technique and think it’s interesting to see metal can be that soft,” she said.
“I use a lot of pearls, too – I give them a modern take,” she added.
Her pearl nests are one of her most popular designs – as earrings or as a station on a bracelet. Many of her creations are in oxidized silver, which involves a chemical treatment that allows her to play with the shade. “It gives it a contemporary color, and you don’t have to clean the silver,” she said. “I use precious stones, as well.”
Prices range from $28 for a pair of silver hand-hammered earrings to average necklaces for $250 to $350. An 18K yellow gold bracelet with seven diamonds in bamboo design is $3,000.
Men’s and women’s rings are popular, especially for handmade wedding rings, which she forges in silver and gold.
She has pieces in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Arts in Bentonville, Arkansas, and stores in Denver, Washington D.C. and Gallery V in Kansas City. She has also sold at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, which is important for the craft scene, and at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
And as often happens in life, everything comes full circle. Going back to her original idea when she first started college, last year, she earned her master’ degree in fashion business and entrepreneurship at Lindenwood University, which she said is basically an MBA with a fashion focus. She now teaches fashion accessory design and introduction to fashion design at Lindenwood.
“I like to say I’m refilling my well,” she said. “I’m in the process of integrating fashion design into my business. I just pull ideas out of my head.”
Chervitz has two boys, 23, and 12, and she believes teaching them to be independent is one of the most important things she can do for them. Her oldest son, Jonah Lieberman, is also a metalsmith and jewelry designer. He began in metaphysical crystal, and then added metal, and she loves that he followed in her footsteps. He owns and operates ROX Gemstones. “And he is now influencing me, and some of my pieces have more color because of that,” she said.
For more information, visit uncommonthreadsjewelry.com.
Jewelry photos courtesy of Randi Chervitz
