Sometimes summer camp can set the direction for the rest of your life.
"There was a girl there wearing a silver ring," said Charms of Aloha Inc. owner Cathleen Bunt. When the girl told her she made the ring herself, "I was totally fascinated that somebody my own age made jewelry," she said.
Now people of all ages who find her Charms of Aloha in galleries and other gift-retailing stores can ooh and aah over the all-grown-up Bunt’s creations.
The oohs and aahs are likely to deepen for visitors to her separate, fine-jewelry website, which features her creations made with precious metals, gemstones and pearls.
This column, however, focuses on the Hawaii-focused designs of her Charms of Aloha business, for which she creates sterling silver charms and offers stunningly colorful glass beads.
A friend of hers got sick of telling customers that no, he didn’t have any beads for Pandora-style bracelets, she said. "He made some, and he couldn’t believe how well they sold." They talked further, and Bunt decided she could do "a Maui version, a Hawaii version, so that’s what I did."
It took her a while to get her foot in the door with galleries and gift retailers specializing in Hawaii-made gifts, but once she did, the shops had great successes in selling the line, she said.
"That’s what I’ve been doing for the last three years," though she said she was "born to make jewelry" and this is hardly her first jewelry-related business venture.
The silver charms range in price from $30 for a small pair of beads to $40 for a "rubber" slipper, $50 for a monk seal, $60 for various seashell-shaped charms, $65 for a honu (turtle) and $95 for a double sea horse charm, in which two sea horses are facing each other.
A newly designed humpback whale was not yet posted on the site as of Thursday, but it will sell for $70 at gift shops including the one run by the Pacific Whale Foundation’s Ocean Stores in Lahaina and Maalaea.
The art-glass beads on her site are created by artisans who fuse glass onto silver grommets to fit the charm-style bracelets, and they do so exclusively for Bunt. The beads sell for $35 and come in a range of intensely bright or deep colors. Some are metallic-looking dichroic glass, while others are reminiscent of beach glass.
The charms and beads can be worn on leather or silver bracelets or necklaces, on silk wraps or via other means. The necklaces, bracelets and locking clips that charm-wearers need, as well as the silk wraps she offers, come from a supplier, but "I do the designing and carving of the original charms."
Her work is cast in silver on the mainland because she has been unable to find a local artisan who can produce according to her needs, "but if I can, I would love to keep that in Hawaii," Bunt said. She also hopes to find a retail representative to broaden the reach of her line and take that part of the business off her plate, she said.
She finishes the cast pieces in her studio before they head for the retail market or are sold via her website.
After Bunt’s childhood summer camp exposure to jewelry making, she stayed on the path through high school, where she learned more techniques, through her first college in Oakland and through her subsequent enrollment at State University of New York at New Paltz, from whence she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in gold and silversmithing. "There are only like, maybe five or six schools across the country that offer it," said Bunt.
During those days "most of us got our start doing local, big craft fairs, and once you get into it, you start finding out about the whole craft industry, and suddenly you’re in business," she said.
One thing led to another, and she was in Hawaii, setting up a trunk show at a Kapalua gallery with a friend, in exchange for free accommodations in a Kapalua condo. After multiple successively longer visits to Hawaii, she decided to set down roots.
For six years she had a retail store in Kihei, and she sold pieces ranging from $3,000 to $50,000 to private clients and from the shop her contractor referred to as "the Taj Mahal," she laughed. Following the stock market crash of 2008, however, she almost got out of the business. She went back to school to learn photovoltaics, and while she received an "A" for her course- work, "I decided maybe I need to go back into silver."
On the Net:
» www.charmsofaloha.com
» cathleenbunt.com
Where to buy them
» Nohea Gallery at Ward Warehouse
» Britton Gallery, Haleiwa
» Polynesian Cultural Center
» Dolphin Gallery, Lahaina, Maui
» Hula Girl, Kapaa, Kauai
» Harbor Gallery, Kamuela, Big Isle
“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
