THE STORY BEHIND: Coeur Necklace

(Coeur Necklace  & Coeur Earrings shown above)

Last year we conducted a short survey and learned that you were interested in finding out out more about the inspiration behind our designs. In particular, some of you shared that you wanted to hear about the stories and process behind each original creation. 

As a result, we are going to be posting a series of blogs that share each of these heartfelt stories. In celebration of love and Valentine's Day, we are going to start with the story behind our new Coeur Necklace + Earrings. Below is a short transcript of a discussion I had with Julia, our marketing director, on an afternoon walk around the neighborhood.

JULIA: So we are walking to your inspiration tile for the heart necklace.

STACY: Yes.

JULIA: And it is on your walk to work.

STACY: Or walk home …whichever way you want to slice it.

JULIA: Tell us a little more about that and the whole experience.

STACY: I always keep my eyes open. All the time. There’s a lot of stress in the world. It’s heavy times for a lot of people, you know?

JULIA: Definitely.

STACY: And my reprieve from all that stuff is keeping my eyes open for beauty and inspiration. It’s that journey of always just keeping my eyes open and whatever kind of head-space I’m in. When I’m in the zone, focused on love…beauty… things pop out. Ideas and creativity, grow from visual inspiration. Sometimes it comes from a flower or a plant. The timing of this little inspiration was when we were designing our new line. I've always wanted to have a heart charm necklace in our collection. I have had a love/hate relationship with the heart. Because I feel like…a lot of heart symbolism is not as dynamic as how I feel the real true heart is, which is vibrating like a beautiful energy. That being said, I also wanted to have the heart we created for the line to incorporate the textile aspects that are evident in all our pieces. To have that continuity is important.  I was walking to work and was reflecting on some things I had been reading about brain and perspective health. One of the suggestions relates to how ordinary routines run our lives. Have you heard about this?

JULIA: No I haven’t, what is that?

STACY: So if you drive a certain way to work, take a different route. Do it differently. Just to keep you sharp. You never know, right? So do the ordinary differently.

JULIA: So you’re paying attention but to different things.

STACY: Yeah, it’s like retraining your brain. It’s kind of like when you get trapped in different loops, we know thought is energy; So if we want to break these  loops … we have to see the havoc of our monkey mind. You know? We all have the loop going through out head.

JULIA: A very active monkey mind!

STACY: The monkey mind! As Ram Dass says, “I’m a vertical schizophrenic. Up and down, up and down.” I’ve been working hard at breaking the loops that have a hold on me, trying to get free of  that monkey mind. A lot of times it’s hard, you know when your job is to keep creating beauty in the world. Sometimes you don’t feel beautiful, you’re not necessarily feeling the vibrations that you want to put out there. So I was going through some stuff, breaking through some habits and I decided this one day that I was just going to walk down a different street, maybe just start a new pattern and do it differently.

(Original photo of the tile on the day Stacy found it.)

JULIA: So on a simple walk.

STACY: On this walk, I’m taking you a different way, this is where the heart comes in and it's all because I did something differently that day. It was in the fall, right after a rain and sycamore leaves were everywhere- just the pure essence of fall at my footsteps. A big pile of leaves in particular was calling to me.  I walked over to it and wanted to see what lay beneath, I pushed the leaves away and there it was, pure love- an imprint of the most beautiful heart. Wait until you see it!

JULIA: I’m so excited!

STACY: I hope it’s still there. It’s really old!

JULIA: It should be there! We’re coming for it. Which means it’s not going anywhere.

STACY: I don’t think so. Because it looks old, like back in the day when they used to put beautiful tiles in the cement sidewalk just because, right? And there it was. As I said, “this would be a beautiful heart charm”So I took a picture of it. Brought it back to Kristina and she loved it, too.

JULIA: Do you still have the picture?

STACY: I do, on my phone.

JULIA: That’s amazing.

STACY: Beauty is everywhere. Whether it's a crack in the sidewalk or a flower growing out of the crack. We just have to open our eyes to it. You know, the glass half full kind of thing.

JULIA: Definitely. We need that more than ever now.

STACY: Yea, it's not easy to always keep the optimistic perspective but that's what nature is for - to keep us connected to what really matters. And the way to keeping that connection strong is to switch it up, do things differently, see things differently. Experience the ordinary as the extraordinary. 

JULIA: And I’m so excited to see it.

STACY: I know where I am but I’m wondering where my tile is? It’s gotta be here.

JULIA: Is that it? No? Is it something like this – this round circle in dirt?

STACY: It’s on the sidewalk here. Maybe it’s on the other side?...

JULIA: Is this it?

STACY: This is IT! THIS IS THE TILE. It was very different. It was covered in leaves. Before it was covered in leaves so it felt like a treasure.

JULIA: It is! You guys added this timeless shape and body to the physical piece.

STACY: Yea, this is it. It came full circle, full circle. There it is, shining from the center. Thank you for bringing me this love. 

We stood on the sidewalk and marveled at the inspiration this simple piece of concrete on a narrow and winding street in Mill Valley brought us. And now we share it with you.