Kathleen Marie Designs

Independent designers given chance to shine in Marshall Field's Chicago Designer Shop

Kathleen Botsford of Barrington and Tracey Mayer of Mount Prospect, both jewelry designers, were chosen to show their work in Marshall Field's Chicago Designer Shop, a boutique featuring through Oct. 31 the clothing and accessories of burgeoning local designers.

Both women came into their signature styles of jewelry design later in life, and both are beginning to see the seeds of success.

In her designs, Botsford uses semi-precious stones, precious stones, artifacts and antiques to create what she describes as dramatic, eye-catching jewelry.

"It's not for anybody that's conservative or timid," Botsford said.

Her career as a jewelry designer began in her mid-40s when she bought a book on beading for her kids. She wanted to find an activity she could do with her children and at the same time learn how to make gifts for people so she could avoid the malls during the holiday season.

A couple of years later, she had left her job in corporate sales and she was showing her jewelry in major Chicago fashion events.

Dorothy Fuller, president of Chicago's Apparel Industry Board, was one of the people who nominated Botsford for the Designer Shop at the State Street store.

"Her pieces are strong and very beautifully crafted," Fuller said. "Her designs set her apart. She's not a run-of-the-mill jewelry designer."

For design ideas, Botsford relies heavily on her materials. After she finds a stone, she said, she researches it and tries to become familiar with the energy of the stone; that's what dictates how she incorporates it into a piece of jewelry.

"It's really simple," she said. "You just have to center yourself and clear yourself and get out of the way." If she gets her ego involved in a piece, she said, it never comes out right.

Although Botsford meditates regularly and "has been a spiritual seeker" since childhood, she said she thinks her customers can sense the energy in her jewelry just as she can.

She tells people looking at her work to go to the first piece that draws their attention and accept that subconscious pull as a guide.

"You don't have to understand what's happening on an energetic level to get a benefit from it," she said, citing ancient beliefs about the healing powers of stones and metals.

Botsford's jewelry varies in price from $75 to $2,000, but most of her necklaces are in the $300 to $500 range. She sells to a couple of vendors near Chicago, including Jolie Femme, an upscale clothing boutique on the North Shore.

More locally, her pieces will be featured in the Wynstone Catholic Charities House Walk in Barrington on Nov. 18.

The most important lesson Botsford has learned from her career in jewelry design, she said, is that all people are endowed with some form of creativity.

"I never thought I was creative," she said. "I think what that speaks to is that we are all creative if we allow ourselves to be — and it doesn't have to be in the way we think we should be."

Tracey Mayer came to jewelry by a more traditional path. Growing up, she was always interested in fashion, which eventually led her to teaching at the Illinois Institute of Art. She has designed jewelry for several years, but her style has metamorphosed in the last year to focus on crafting higher-end pieces.

She hopes her new work will cater to a more chic crowd, in part because she has taken an international focus: although she designs her jewelry locally, she buys her materials in India and runs production out of Indonesia.

"The techniques we use to make (the jewelry) unfortunately are not really known in this country," Mayer said.

Mayer relies on the expertise of Indian silversmiths to make her designs come off paper. The overseas production "gives us very traditional methods of making the jewelry with a contemporary twist on design," she said.

Right now, for example, she's perfecting one new finish that makes silver look like sandpaper, a design which she couldn't have brought to life without the skill of international craftsmen.

Mayer's metal of choice is 950 silver, which is slightly purer than sterling silver. She uses it in combination with semi-precious and precious gems and artifacts such as ancient coins.

Like Botsford's, Mayer's work is big and bold.

"The woman who buys my type of jewelry is a woman who is unique," she said. Her customers are "older, sophisticated women who are really sharp and classy."

For now, Mayer's biggest clients are Gigi's Closette in Glenview and Ultra Diamonds in Chicago, and her prices range from $125 to $750.

But Mayer is in the process of expanding her sales. She's working with several boutiques around Chicago and would like to have a strong presence in the suburbs.

She said the expansion she's seen in her business in the last year has come at a good time. She considers her first job to be raising her two sons, and they're getting older and gaining independence in step with the growth of her business.

And although she acknowledges the surplus of designers in the jewelry market, she said she's not intimidated or discouraged. "There's a lot of competition," she said, and "there are a lot of designers — but there are a lot of people with a lot of money to spend."