Monday, December 8, 2008

trunk show


the lovely katie thomas will be hosting a jocelynbroyles trunk show this weekend at chelsea parkes boutique in Sandy Springs. if you're in the Atlanta area, drop by! the boutique has fabulously gorgeous shoes and handbags, and of course, jb jewelry.

December 11, 12 and 13, 6pm to 8pm
chelsea parkes, a shoe and accessories boutique
227 Sandy Springs Place, #378.
Atlanta, GA
404.256.3344

Friday, December 5, 2008

i've been taking time lately for other art pursuits (not as much as i'd like, but it's a start), especially photography. i've mostly posted a study in clouds, with a couple of other images i especially liked thrown in for good measure.










Friday, October 17, 2008

Who Knew

or actually, Who Knews Atlanta, a fashion website dedicated to what's happening in the fashion world of the ATL, has our picture up too!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

almost famous

and as almost famous people, we showed up in sixdegrees, ATLANTA this month with pics from our fall fashion event at Market boutique: jocelyn&katie/pretties/more pretties/jocelyn,katie,brad,vanessa/the market girls all wear the horseshoe
the event was really fun, katie basically did all the work while i flitted around, touching all the pretty things at market and generally acting the part of artsy designer. thanks for all of your support guys!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

TV

oh to be young and famous, or at least have your jewelry on someone young, or famous, or both. CRASH, the new TV series based on the Oscar-winning movie, features jocelynbroyles jewelry! CRASH premiers this Friday, October 17 at 10p.m on STARZ. Look for designs on Moran Atias, Clare Carey and Arlene Tur.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Back in the Kuh

or as it is better known, Costa Rica. it was a great trip to the states, marked by beautiful, perfect (as i like to call it, "california weather") nearly every day. i made several pilgrimages to the park - one of atlanta's most fabulous traits is a veritable bevy of neighborhood parks and a walking/biking/running trail that runs for miles through the city and several of these parks. i took a lot of time this trip to think about where i want to direct my energies/my business and it became apparent to me that i need to design and make a product that uses renewable parts or better yet, that i live my life and run my business in such a way that the footprint of jocelynbroyles is neutral. so i will be working towards this end in the next few months and plan to debut a new collection that embodies that line of thinking.

in other news, the wedding was grand, in all senses of the word. katie and brad were lovely and the setting gorgeous. i spent a bit of time looking at art this trip and was impressesed and delighted by the marionettes of simone wilson. she also makes all kinds of other fabulous art that at some point, i'm going to start collecting. i may just start with Lucy.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Sugar

We've been seen again on Daily Candy! We'll be out at Market boutique in Buckhead (Atlanta - 2770 Lenox Rd.
404-814-0977) tonight (Oct. 2) from 6-10pm. There's a DJ, drinks from Peroni, and bites from Enoteca and Baraonda. Come play with us!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

US Fall Schedule

i will be back in the south as of september 16, 2008 and here's what i'll be up to:

September 19-21: attending the much anticipated nuptuals of the below mentioned katie and brad.

September 23: Trunk Show: 6:00pm to 9:00pm at Chelsea Parkes. Located in Sandy Springs in the new City Walk Shopping Plaza on Boutique Row.
227 Sandy Springs Place, #378.
Atlanta, GA 30328
404.256.3344.

October 2: Trunk Show: October 2, 6:00pm to 10:00pm Market boutique. Come eat, drink and shop. Live DJ, other designers, and of course, jewelry! Lots of cash and carry, custom orders taken as well.
2770 Lenox Rd., Ste 2,
Atlanta, GA 303024
404.814.0977

Mid October TBA: Private Jewelry Party. If you're in town and would like an invitation, drop us an email

i'll be in the states until October 16!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Phones

my phone situation can be a bit daunting, what with my having 46 or 47 numbers to choose from. and i have people asking me all the time which number is which, so i thought i'd write up a little guide. this is not necessarily a vaguely disguised plea for phone calls, but if you do want to call, you can! okay, here goes:

213.985.0530. this is my US office number. i answer this phone during normal business hours, monday through friday. if i don't answer, you'll get voice mail, which i check throughout the workday.

404.247.6191. this is my US cell phone. it's on and willing to ring anytime i'm in the US (those dates will always be posted on this blog). you can leave me a voicemail there when i'm out of the US, but the outgoing message should let you know you can better reach me at the 213 number. i don't check the 404 voicemail when i'm in costa rica.

011.506.8376.6417. this is my costa rica cell phone. how difficult or expensive it is to call me on this phone, is dependent on your phone plan and carrier. my mom calls me on it all the time and usually gets voicemail, poor thing. the phone is old, and the system is third world, so i have to remember to check voicemail everyday, as my phone doesn't actually ring. so really, it's a better place to leave me a message than to actually talk to me. which brings me back around to the 213 number, which is really the best place to call. it's on and working whenever i am, wherever i am. oh, the joys of technology!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Midnight Train to Georgia . . .

or noon flight out of Costa Rica, i get confused.

so i'm headed back to atlanta next tuesday, and as much as you all would like to think paradise is always paradise, leaving guanacaste (the province in which i live) in mid-september is not such a bad idea. in fact many of our friends have already bailed. and i don't really mean that in the hurriedly-bucketing-water-out-of-a-sinking-boat way, but i could, since in this little slice of paradise, most things are dripping or drowning or decaying from mold, water, vines, water, moss and water. did i mention water? while the south and the carribean has been slaughtered by hurricanes, we have been lucky enough to just be drenched with several inches of water a day for the last two weeks. part of our kitchen ceiling fell in, at least three of our walls are actually dripping from seeped water, and most of our ceilings have lots of mold splotches, if not at least one really good water pouch just waiting to fall through. did i mention too, that paradise is not always paradise?

and lest i sound like i'm complaining too much, rest assured, today is gorgeous and sunny, with little white puffy clouds and blue sky. i've little yellow butterflies flitting around the red-blossomed hedge by the pool, and my dog is lounging happily under the mano tigre plant. hubby and i drank our coffee this morning while doing a garden tour (yards aren't called yards here, they're all gardens and we think this is really cute, so we call the whole yard, mess that it is, a garden) and pulling out a ground cover that's out-competing our rose-moss-like flowers and generally enjoying the morning. we followed this up with a quick swim in our very-cold-for-us pool. not such a bad way to start the day (and this is an average morning for us).

but i digress. so i'm leaving again and will be back in the states for about a month. steve is joining me for the first week, which is a treat, and we get to go to a wedding of two of my most precious friends, katie and brad. katie and brad put up with me on a regular basis, (i stay with them whenever i'm in the ATL), and are wondeful, fabulous people. i'm very lucky to have them in my life.

Friday, August 22, 2008

A "Normal" Week in the Life

monday came 'round as usual, and our visitors, who thought they would just stay friday night, ended up improving our lives for the whole weekend. they're a super cool couple doing their second central-american tour, this time down into south america as well. you can read all about them, if you're so inclined (in a former life, i too did the drive-around-central-america-for-a-year thing, and in so doing, became a lifelong member of a certain group of people who like to do this sort of travel). but i digress, monday was likely uneventful, as i really can't remember anything about it, except for the phone message that the phone company decided to tell me about six or seven hours after it was left (this is actually a pretty good time record, it often takes days for messages to show up, sometimes getting lost forever in the ether) on my cell phone. the message consisted of a girlfriend asking me if i wanted to indulge in a spa day at the incredibly luxurious and beautiful altos de eros spa up on the hill. they sometimes invite my friend, as a thank you for sending people their way. she runs Sueno del Mar, a high-end bed and breakfast here in town, and often recommends the spa to her guests. i did hem and haw for about two seconds, then called her back and said yes.

so tuesday found me up very early and in the studio (this is about the only time i find it convenient that new york is two hours ahead of me) taking care of about four hours of work in two, and then blissfully being massaged, facialed, scrubbed and fed for most of the rest of the day.

wednesday was a crazy long day, making up for skipping school on tuesday. it was a fun day though, a rarity in that i actually designed and made some jewelry. i'm working on a wedding and am doing the bride's earrings. we've narrowed it down to a few choices and though she's picked a favorite, i will likely make the top three, so that she has a choice when the wedding gown is actually with the jewelry.

thursday came and went with me seemingly busy, but not having a lot to show for it. i did, however, in the early evening, go next door to one of my best friend's houses for a glass of wine with the girls. there is a trend with the people who live here to hop around from place to place. it is a rare month when all of my girlfriends are here at the same time.

friday has been very productive, and now i'm off to play wife at dinner with some of my husband's clients. we're feasting at the new restaurant of a good friend, who is such a fabulous chef, i'm worried he won't be gracing us with his talent for more than a couple more years. but lucky us, he's here now!

p.s. i've gone ahead and posted some random picures that really have nothing at all to do with my post. amber is a fabulous friend who put me up for a week during my first stay ever in miami. her digs are gorgeous and i awoke daily to views of the bay and downtown beyond. the picture of my first studio is pretty self-explanitory, it was, well, small.

Friday, August 8, 2008

how to cram two months of work into three weeks

i really didn't get to see or hardly even talk on the phone to anyone i love (or even just like) for the entire three weeks i was in the US. i'm sure some of my loved- and liked-ones have also realized this fact, so, in my own defense and in hopes of garning large amounts of sympathy for my poor overworked self, i feel encouraged and even obliged to give you all a blow by blow of the daily life of a quasi-famous, emerging-status, travelling-like-crazy jewelry designer on tour.

tuesday, july 15, 2008. leave home in tamarindo at 9:30am mountain standard US time. arrive atlanta 7:05pm eastern standard time. get off plane. go through immigration. wait for bags. get bags. go through customs. recheck bags (a rediculous ATL international airport task). wait again for bags. reclaim bags. take shuttle to rental car agency. wait. wait. wait. get car, but not the one i reserved 15 days in advance. wait more to get non-gas-guzling econobox. wait. 9:53pm eastern standard time get the keys to my car. get in. call the friend i was supposed to have dinner with. we're both too tired and half-asleep at 10:05pm on a tuesday. drive instead to my home in atlanta (i don't actually own the place, though i'm sure i act as though i do!) which is a very welcoming house of very good friends who put up with me on a bi-monthly basis). proceed to show one of my very closest girlfriends the new jewelry i just barely created in time to come to the US. we talk about the jewelry party she's hosting for me on thursday. we drink half a glass of wine, i unpack and fall into bed.

wednesday, july 16, 2008. get up around 7:00am with the doggies. make coffee. talk to katie, my friend, confidant, supporter and coffee supplier (for this, i love her above all things.) shower, call my too-tired-for-dinner-last-night friend. he's moving his photography studio (www.pisarriproductions.com) and i offer to help. that is, between the hours of 12:00pm and 2:00pm. otherwise, i am in a meeting at 10am, picking up cupcackes for the Market trunkshow at 2:30pm, setting up from 3:30pm to 6:00pm, meeting, greeting and selling jewelry from 6:00pm to 11:00pm. then cleaning up and driving home around mindnight. i proceed to eat dinner just as we welcome in july 17, drink a glass of wine while doing so, and fall into bed around 1:00am.

thursday, july 17, 2008. get up around 7:00am with the doggies. run errands for the jewelry party my coffee-providing, house-welcoming, problem-solving-friend is hosting tonight. meet with potential clients. drive around an area of atlanta (buckhead) that i don't know for squat, looking for potential clients to meet with later. take an hour, totally, regrettably, painfully and unintentionally not helping my too-tired-for-dinner-last-night friend, so i can go swim laps with coffee-and-house-providing katie. swim. ignore everything around me, blissfully mindless due to the fact that my head is underwater for 25 or so minutes. rinse. dress. go to trader joe's to pick up flowers, fruit and adult beverages for the jewelry party at katie's. get home. set up jewelry, which takes just as long as last night at the trunk show. 6:00pm i finally shower, katie goes for ice, the girls come, they drink, shop, eat, and i work until 12:30 when the last girls leave. i stay up until about 2:00am, breaking down, repacking and getting ready for the upcoming road trip.

friday, july 18, 2008. get up around 7:00am with the doggies. yeah! it's friday! wait. i have stores to visit, orders to write up, checks to record and deposit and credit cards to process. i work until 2:00pm, and when i just can't think anymore, katie and i go shop for something she needs for her upcoming nuptuals. we go to the park for half and hour. i come home and work, bailing on a date with kaite and her fiance brad, who plays a mean sax and is delightful to be around and is playing at a local club. i eat around 11:00pm and go to bed.

saturday, july 19, 2008. get up around 7:00am with the doggies. yeah! it's saturday! wait. i have three appointments, jewelry to retag and set up, maps to print out, errands to run, calls to make and details to confirm regarding the sales road trip that amanda and i are embarking upon tomorrow. i am trying simultaneously to think, and not-think, about my upcoming tradeshow in vegas, for which i have made zero calls, and prepared even less. i do all that i can to prep for the road trip. i'm packed, so is the jewelry and i finally get to sit down with michael (my
too-tired-moving-his-studio-incredibly-fabulous friend) for a glass of wine. we end our wine drinking around 10:00pm, regrettably, but practically, so we can both get on with our sunday without a hangover.

sunday, july 20, 2008. i sleep in! oh wait, no i don't. i get up around 7:00am with the doggies. dont' get me wrong. i truly like, adore and cuddle at any given moment these dogs. but i am a very light sleeper and when they're up, so am i. which, in truth, is a good thing, as there is really no time for frivolities such as sleep when i'm in the states. i get all the loose ends ready for the trip and realize that the maps i ordered never came. hmmm. maybe no-dinner-moving-late-wine-drinking-fabulous friend has one. i'll have to see. but after requisite large amounts of coffee, i am off to a massage that i earned in trade for jewelry at the katie party on thursday. mmmm. massage. a luxury that we all should consider a neccessity. i am much more relaxed and feeling very able to tackle the four-hour drive to asheville, where one of my most favorite people in the whole word resides. we get into asheville around 6:00pm. i am on the phone intermittantly with cocktoaston (anyone who reads the sandcruiser journals will immediatly know and love this true-life character) who fuzzily and choppily informs me that virginie, his pregnant wife, is in the hospital with something painful, but as of yet, undiagnosed. aaak. not good. but in true cocktoaston formula, he is cool, collected, sure of himself and his wife and their rightful, happy, unscarred place in the world. we get to his incredibly adorable cottage on the pond/golf course and proceed to unpack and change into running clothes as quickly as we possibly can. we enjoy a breathtaking run (we later learn our little sea-level lungs were running at 3,000 feet or so) around the golf course, we eat country apples, giggle at the bunnies running around and watch the ducklings dive in the pond. we go into town for a late snack and sleep very well in our matching twin beds that remind me of my grandma's house.


monday, july 21, 2008. amanda and jocelyn are both running behind, but as a result, get to see john (aka cocktoaston) briefly before we take off to visit our possible new accounts. we make plans to see him later, and go the wrong way towards asheville propper. we turn around for not the first, and most certainly not the last time. we find asheville (and yes, we were just there last night. a testimate to just how directionally challenged we both are). we meet several lovely store owners, get lost, turn around - i told you - finally get some food around 4:00pm from an adorable corner grocery, and meet up with john for cocktails and dinner. virginie is fine, and is on her way home. we spend a couple hours with john, wake virginie up when we get home (luckily or otherwise i would not have seen her) and you guessed it, fall into bed.

that concludes the first week and suffice it to say each day following was just as busy. but amanda and i are fabulously suited to one another (i believe at one point, probaly while turning the car around, i asked her to marry me and she said yes) and we had a very productive, tiring, fun trip and have already begun to plan out next one.

on that note (or rather novel) i'll leave you biting your nails, leaving the lights on, wondering how vegas was. but in a word (or two), it was vegas, baby.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

So I Have

a wasp's nest in my studio. i had this one, very leggy, very large wasp (of a variety i particularly try to avoid for aforementioned largeness and longness) wandering around my studio the other day. all sorts of bugs abound indoors and out in the tropics and one tends to get used to most critters. in our house, we try and shoo them back outside as best we can: frogs, crabs, moths, etc. the geckos and spiders do fine inside, as do the ants, so we pretty muchly just leave them alone. but wasps are a different story, a story in which i try and not play a major role. so i tried to shoo this one wasp out time and time again, finally succeeding a day or two ago, only to find her back in my studio. "blast!", i thought. "she must have come back in with the dog." so i let her out again. only to see her back, hovering, legs dangling perilously close to my head. it then occurred to me (and my husband at the same time) that i was breeding the darn things. we looked all over the studio and found a bunch of little mud huts, perfectly wasp sized, but none that looked active. though i'm not sure what our course of action would have been had we found the active ones. so, for the last two days, i get up about once an hour and let a very confused but pretty directionally-gifted wasp out my sliding glass door into the yard. they seem to know just which direction to fly when they first appear, but if i do not get up right away on their first approach to the doors, i can be stuck with one, ducking and weaving in the current of the fan, for hours. so i try and be prompt when one beckons for me to open the door. and my dog thinks she has me trained. ha.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Roxy Music

just the name alone feels sexy, then take one look at bryan ferry and you're hooked. i don't know about any of the rest of you, but i could listen to that voice, well, anytime.

there's a new book out about about the guy, and the band, and looks like a good, even rather erudite read. i hope to get a copy when i'm back in the states next week.

you can read an excerpt here of Michael Bracewell's "Re-Make/Re-Model: Becoming Roxy Music"

in other news, i'm just worker-beeing away my hours in the studio, designing, making samples, calling stores, planning parties and tradeshow suite layouts, filling out forms, exchanging emails with my designer partners; friends helping us plan our road trip; and suppliers; writing up press releases, working on current orders, collecting payments, ordering supplies and planning my next tradeshows and trunk shows for fall/2009.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Change In Plans

just a slight change in party plans:

July 16, 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.: Trunk Show at Market Boutique.
July 17, 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.: Private Jewelry Party in Atlanta. Contact us for an invitation!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Tuesday and Travel on the Gold Coast

my friend, jen, who's been visiting for two weeks, trying to decide if she wants to move here, got dropped off at the small (nay, tiny) tamarindo airport today, assuming, as we all generally would, that she would get on a plane, fly to san jose and connect with her next flight. now, i, living here, should have known that something was amiss when we drove up with less than 15 minutes before her flight was to leave, and found no plane and very few people waiting. but such are the vagaries of teeny tiny third-world airports in the middle of what five years ago was nowhere and is now still not much more than heading towards somewhere. so about three hours and several misdirections and excuses later, her airline informed her that they were cancelling all flights to san jose, and she returned, rather happily i might say, to our house, where she proceeded to unpack, take a shower and head out for a date.

Monday, June 30, 2008

US Trip

getting all the details together for my upcoming business trip to pretty muchly all over the US. my itenerary is as follows. anyone interested in attending any of the parties or trunk shows, or the tradeshow, please let us know!

July 15: arrive in Atlanta
July 16: trunk show at Market boutique (open to the public)
July 17: private jewelry party in Atlanta (let us know if you'd like an invitation)
July 18-19: sales in Atlanta
July 20: arrive Asheville, South Carolina, sales
July 23: arrive Durham, North Carolina, sales
July 24/25: trunk show at Cozy boutique (open to the public)
July 26: arrive back in Atlanta, sleep
July 27: arrive Vegas, set up for show
July 28-31: The Collections at WSA show at the Venetian (passes needed, let us know if you'd like one)
August 1: arrive back in Atlanta, perhaps take a day off
August 3: arrive in Costa Rica, definitely take a day off!

Market is located at 2770 Lenox Rd., Ste 2, Atlanta, GA 303024, 404.814.0977
Cozy is located at 770 Ninth St. Durham, NC 27705 919.286.3400

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Saturday in the beginning of the wet

the sunset looks promising this evening, pale creamy peach, light lavender and pale pale pink, which might all turn into darker, fuller, more passionate forms of themselves. the fountain is going, a nice coincidence at this time of night. my visiting friends are napping, tired from an all-night dancing session. it's quiet and still and my favorite time of day. after i'm done here, i'm going to, "go make something pretty", which to me, means i get to go into the studio and make something without purpose, without saleability, without ties and constraints to my job. this also usually means i get to make something for me. which is always a nice fringe benefit to being a designer. on this note, i realized that i actually wear very few of my own designs as they are sold. i tend to modify or alter, add or change a stone, and i layer. i hardly walk out of the house (or sleep, for that matter) with less than two necklaces on, and usually three.

well, the previous paragraph was written last night, and i didn't quite get the change to finish it. so we'll just continue with today. and since today is sunday, i'm mostly going to enjoy my house, my dog, my pool and my husband, not necessarily in that order (i may also enjoy an episode of pushing daisies, which is my new favorite show and which i like to call pulling poppies.)

i'm also working on the fall collection, which normally would not be a sunday thing (i really try to take saturday and sunday off) but since i live in costa rica and since that means if i want to get jewelry out of the country, i send it with a "personal courier" (this tends to be a friend or friend of a friend, strangers don't usually get saddled with this job), so i need to finish firing some original PMC clay pieces, so i can send them off on tuesday with a friend leaving out of san jose, who upon her return to san francisco will drop it in a fedex box on wednesday where it will go out to get plated in new york. (i do live in paradise, but things that are often simple in the first world take on epically difficult proportions from here.) i will then get these pieces back in atlanta where i'll turn them into sample necklaces for my upcoming trunk shows in atlanta and north carolina and my tradeshow in vegas.

which brings me nicely around to what my general plans are in the coming month. i'll be taking off for atlanta (my US base of operations) on july 15, where i'll spend a few days prepping for and hosting a private jewelry party, followed the next night by a trunk show at Market Boutique in Buckhead; followed by a six-day road trip doing sales and another trunk show at Cozy Boutique in Durham; on the heels of which will be the The Collections at WSA show at the Venetian in Vegas. anyone of you out there who'll be at the show (or just in vegas), please come by and say hello! i'm in suite #6136