Gem of a business: Islander’s borderless beauties
Published 6:30 pm Monday, November 24, 2008
Lee Gelb might have a hard time putting herself out of a job this time.
The former international aid worker used to consider her mission a success the day that a community became self-sustaining and demand for her services ceased.
But while the impoverished people the Islander is serving on one end of her growing jewelry business — Zavida Gemstones — may one day politely tell her that her work is done, it is doubtful that the not-so-impoverished consumers on the other end will dismiss her so willfully.
One Island woman who bought a pair of earrings from her says she gets so many comments on them, she has begun carrying Gelb’s business cards around to respond to the inevitable inquiries. “I’ve never done that before,” Lisa Samuelson said.
As Gelb celebrates the two-year anniversary of Zavida this month, the holiday shows she holds in her home have outgrown the space. She is for the first time displaying her wares in a public venue with a show at Bellevue’s Smith & Hawken Plaza.
The last two years are in fact a culmination of the last 20. In Zavida (a word Gelb created from a blend of languages to mean “gift of splendor”), Gelb has coalesced a career of field work and human resource management for the aid organization CARE with a lifelong love of gems and minerals. The company she created out of her Mercer Island home brings extraordinary designs from places such as Indonesia, India, Thailand, Mexico, Italy and Germany to buyers in the Northwest while giving a boost to the laborers in the countries where her products originate. Twenty-five percent of her sales since the company’s founding have gone into a separate account to be reinvested into artisan communities.
“I’ve always had this philosophy since my first job scooping ice cream that you should do what you love,” Gelb said. “I decided I was going to put everything I loved - stones, fossils, jewelry, traveling, meeting people - into a business model and try it. I thought, it’s better to try and fail than not try at all.”
Gelb was recruited by Starbucks in 1997 to help oversee the Seattle coffee giant’s international expansion. She was senior vice president of both domestic and international human resource operations by the time she left the company in 2002 to refocus her efforts on helping the world’s poor. “I enjoyed it, but I wanted to get back into development, and I wanted to do something more creative.”
Though she doesn’t personally craft any of the jewelry that she sells, the 51-year-old flexes her creative muscles in adapting the designs she sees in her travels to the tastes of her Northwest customers.
An intricately crafted gold nose ring with semi-precious jewels meant for a woman in India might be transformed into a pendant for another in Seattle; silver bangles weighing several kilos make sense for nomads who carry all their valuables on their person, but a Westerner would appreciate it as a scaled-down version to wear to a party.
The artisans Gelb works with respond enthusiastically to her suggestions, she says, at the prospect of making their crafts more sellable. “If you work alongside them and have mutual respect for one another, you can accomplish amazing things,” she said.
The real milestone of her two-year anniversary is not the success that outgrowing her kitchen counter implies. It is the launch of a project in Gujarat, India, which will help the silversmiths of the region evolve their craft into a sustainable industry by contemporizing their ancient designs and making them more functional. Hard-hit by an earthquake in 2001 that killed 25,000, Gelb said the region’s silversmiths, though highly regarded for their craftsmanship, were largely overlooked by aid agencies.
Through the Zavida Project, as she calls it, Gelb plans to use the profits she has set aside to hire a design professional to work with about 40 silversmiths and their families. She will help them examine different channels of distribution and test pilot their designs with the goal of revitalizing their art and expanding its market.
As her business continues to grow, Gelb ultimately plans to have similar projects in each continent where gemstones are mined or artists are living. And if she does achieve a model of sustainability, the crafts they produce could keep everyone in business for a long time to come.
Zavida Gemstones
Holiday Show
Dec. 14 and 15, 4-8 p.m.
Sat., Dec. 16 3-8 p.m.
Sun., Dec. 17, 12-5 p.m.
Pratt & Larson
Smith & Hawkin Plaza
12200 Northrup Way
Bellevue
www.zavida gemstones.com
(206) 465-1533
