About Us

ROOTS

It all really begins with Ron Cravens growing up in Indiana and Kentucky learning metal working in school, welding and being influenced by family who worked with their hands and worked for themselves in various fields including blacksmithing.

Rosemarie Martinez a native New Yorker,  was always interested in Art and Science but opted for the Art and was just finishing up studying art in college feeling aimless when they met. As college was finishing there was the absolute certainty that the  Junior High School Art Teaching License just acquired might never be used.  Student teaching for the license was in an inner city JR high and was so challenging all around that it seemed a poor fit at the time. It takes an extraordinary "something special" (missing)  to be an urban  teacher. Something else was waiting .

Meanwhile Ron being who he is , "ventured off the farm" (actually a small city on the Ohio River) and landed in California. Then off  on another explore clear across the country to NYC where he met  the soon to graduate aimless non art teacher.                                                                                      

Where did fate connect them? A lobby of a hospital while taking a break from visiting others.. 

"We met, looked at each other and simply put omitting for the sake of brevity all of the romantic flowery detiails,  went happily off into the world together a few months later. We were barely out of our teens and excitedly ready for life's next adventure, together" 

After working in Yoga retreat  in Laurentian Mountains of Quebec for a bit came  hitch hiking across Canada, a whole other story. These were very freewheeling days and it was not uncommon to see hippies (guess we qualified) crossing the country as folks had been doing before since the beatnik days and perhaps since the 1930’s. About those crazy adventures hitch hiking in Canada, as our close friends know, there are quite a few colorful entertaining episodes in that span,  left out here. This is a business website after all .

 We briefly picked apples for a living in the Okanogan Valley of western Canada, worked in a vegetarian restaurant in  Vancouver, and Ron developed his first craft skills as a carved candlemaker in Vancouver, Canada!  

Off  we went again after awhile through  California in a beat up VW bus, circling back to the east coast and ultimately landing on Martha's Vineyard where our settling down and the jewelry occupation began. 

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MARTHA'S VINEYARD

Life on Martha’s Vineyard was idyllic but wait,  before you think we lived in one of those lovely gray weathered Vineyard summer homes, though lovely it was we actually lived in a friend's glass cabin made from recycled windows in the woods on a fairly long sandy driveway. James Taylor was our neighbor but it was still a glass house in the woods. It was heaven except in thunder storms.  We survived one of the most horrific lightening storms we ever experienced save the time we camped out at the edge of the Grand Canyon under large pines in similar weather! Horrifying but we survived, obviously.

We cooked on a coleman stove, ate lots of brown rice, went to the beach each day in our very beat up VW bus (wish we had it now, worth a fortune) , picked cranberries with a scoop for some wages (back breaking). No worries. 

Our occupation? 

WE WERE WEAVERS! 

We wove woolen belts on two floor inkle looms Ron made,  sewed brass buckles to the ends. It was a hippies dream accessory and we were actually quite (relatively) successful selling our wares in a Vineyard Haven store. We loved earning a salary working with our hands and being independent.

That is when more good fate stepped in. 

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JAMES RUSSELL

On one of our selling stops into town we met a man who would change our lives. 

James Russell was a jeweler & leather worker who ventured to Edgartown from Nantucket and Coconut Grove in the winter. He was so successful in his little shop in Edgartown that  he needed an employee. 

He suggested we stop by his workshop/gallery/store  and one day  (actually the day we decided to get get married, formally)  we ventured to Edgartown to see his studio. Seeing that I did not have a formal wedding ring James Russell reached into his jewelry case and handed me a lovely gold wedding ring which fit!

He explained his situation and  hired Ron on the spot, and over time taught him all the basics of silver and goldsmithing.  Our friendship grew.. His profitable business grew and with it his excellent reputation. 

Ron always says - 

“He not only taught me silversmithing and goldsmithing but how to actually run a business, pricing structures.  Being creative and being able to actually live from one's income is not easy. Hidden expenses exist everywhere”. 

When the company moved to Rockport, Mass we went along and Jim hired and trained several other people who mostly all became jewelers in their own style eventually! The crew included Ron Cravens, Tom McGurrin, Alan Soule, Norman Scrimshaw, Bob Pearsall, Floyd Bucklin, Tom Kuhner and Richard Handle.

All were part of the company of James Russell Silversmiths. Five League of NH Craftsmen jewelers eventually!  

Bob and Susan Pearsall and Richard Handle are no longer with us and we deeply miss them. They were family.

We will forever be indebted to James Russell, a generous person, great teacher and still a lifelong friend!