Writer Shannon Severson // Photography by Carly Tumen
The earth reveals its glory to us each day in painterly sunsets, striated rock formations, sunlight reflecting off rippling waters or verdant green trees quivering in the breeze. But some of the rarest beauty is hidden beneath the ground in gemstones. There is something thrilling about a brilliant gem –– the way it catches the light, the slight variations in color and the knowledge that it’s not just any old rock; it’s a treasure.
At the highest tier of these sparkling rarities are jewels so pure as to not require any heating or chemical alteration to bring out their color and radiance. Luxury jewelry designer Katherine Jetter works with these gems exclusively and a collection of her colorful, eye-catching designs that combine premier quality precious stones and specialty gold finishes make their Arizona debut at Carefree’s Grace Renee Gallery.
“I only work with unheated gemstones,” Jetter reveals. “They are the most special and rare. I work with miners around the world to find rare, unheated pink sapphires, imperial topaz from Brazil, paraiba tourmaline from Brazil and Mozambique –– these unbelievable small parcels of different colored gems. I use diamonds, too, but it’s all about the gem hunt for me. I seek out colors and gems that are unique and magical.”
She attends the Tucson gem show each year and spends 10 days looking at hundreds of stones before she settles on just three or four gems for each line.
“I’m a complete dork,” she says with a smile in her voice. “I love chemistry and gemology. For me, the thing that drove me to become a jewelry designer is the gems themselves. Miners find average material 90% of the time. Then they find something special. That’s someone’s entire life and commitment to find something so special. I go and find those stones and bring them into my collection for some lucky woman to behold. I take pride in making these pieces.”
How this talented native of Melbourne, Australia built a sought-after brand from scratch is the story of hard work, high risk and dreams fulfilled. Coming from a family with no connections to the jewelry industry, she showed creative talent from a young age and attended art school in the United Kingdom. While there, Jetter won an international art prize for the northern hemisphere in 1999.
She hoped to attend Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London, but her parents weren’t keen to have her focus on creative pursuits. Instead, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in clinical psychology.
Between university and her first job at JP Morgan’s London office, Jetter studied language in Florence, Italy.
“I would walk the streets after classes and there were all these jewelry artisans in small shops,” she recounts. “I was fascinated by it. I approached one woman and, in my bad Italian, asked if I could draw for her and practice my Italian language skills. I was able to sketch for her and practice speaking while she made jewelry.”
Back in London, the inspiration she had discovered in the cobbled streets of Florence never left. In fact, it only grew stronger.
“I daydreamed for three years about sitting by the ocean making jewelry as I was working on spreadsheets at JP Morgan,” Jetter recalls.
She convinced her father to allow her to attend the Gemological Institute of America –– more commonly known as GIA –– in New York City. He agreed, but with the caveat that she needed to land a job within three months. So off she went with a dream, her artistic skills and a lot of determination and became a GIA Graduate Gemologist.
“The Diamond Dealers Club was looking for more members, especially women,” Jetter says. “I offered to be the sixth woman in the club.”
With a seat at the table at the foremost diamond exchange in the U.S., a friend of Jetter’s handed her a check for $10,000 and an order for a custom engagement ring –– the first of many pieces she would design from that day forward.
“I started making one-of-a-kind engagement rings for my friends,” Jetter says. “I didn’t have any family in the industry or any connections whatsoever. I have saved up every dollar I’ve made to create my jewelry brand, beginning in 2008.”
In her brand’s inaugural year, Jetter was a nominee for Couture Designer of the Year and was picked up by Saks Fifth Avenue stores. A year and a half later, Neiman Marcus also began featuring her line and a slew of luxury retailers followed.
Jetter is known for reintroducing opals –– the signature precious stone of her homeland –– back to the luxury market and her collection has been featured in British Vogue and Robb Report.
Her jewelry has also adorned stars on the red carpet, most recently at the Grammy Awards ceremony by country music superstar Miranda Lambert, who flashed a pair of Jetter’s Tik Tok earrings fashioned with tanzanite cabochons and dark gray Tahitian pearls and a show-stopping evening cocktail ring with a 61.91-carat Burmese blue grey star sapphire surrounded by gray and purple sapphires and diamonds.
“The ideas are always floating somewhere in my brain before they hit paper,” says Jetter of her creative process. “As a creative, I’m always designing in my head and then it comes out on paper. I’m a traditional with pencil and paper. My workshop creates the cads and we go to production from there.”
While the majority of her work over the years has been one-of-a-kind custom pieces, she created a limited edition collection, the Origami line, in 2019.
“It’s the next evolution of my collection to create reproducible fine color pieces,” she says. “I buy parcels of rough, rare materials that can be recut and reordered. They feature special baguettes in bracelets, hoops, necklaces and layering necklaces but still have very fine quality in unheated gems like morganite, tanzanite, green beryl and aquamarine. Fun fact: Morganite is a really amazing naturally pink gemstone named after JP Morgan.”
From a desk at JP Morgan to a jewelry collection with sparkling Morganite, Jetter has come full circle. She eventually found herself making jewelry by the sea in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where she opened her first retail location, The Vault Nantucket, in 2017. Her dream had become reality.
Discerning jewelry enthusiasts flock to the Nantucket shop and a second location in Boston, which debuted in 2021. The sleek, contemporary designs are fresh and timeless with clean lines and color that’s wearable for years to come –– and there are always new creations in the works.
This fall, she’s launching the Graffiti Collection, which she calls “painting with colored gemstones.” The pieces will feature opals, rubellite (a hot pink version of tourmaline), emerald, tanzanite, pink sapphire with unique enamel and rhodium hues.
“The enamel looks like it’s dripping like paint,” Jetter describes. “It’s different than people expect from me. There are 30 pieces and it’s a really fun line.”
Her two shops feature more than just Jetter’s designs; their display cases glitter with the work of talented creators who have become colleagues and friends over the years.
“The Vault is a curation of jewelry designers who are largely my close friends in the industry,” she explains. “We’ve done trade shows together and shared each other’s journey as designers. Jewelry is something that celebrates a moment in time –– a gift or a moment of celebration, passed on as an heirloom from generation to generation. There’s a lot of heart and meaning behind what we do. The Vault Nantucket is a very personal celebration of jewelry design.”
Arizonans who’d like to see and purchase her creations in person won’t have to travel far when Jetter debuts her collection at Carefree’s Grace Renee Gallery. She expects her vibrantly-hued pieces will fit right in, as both the gallery and The Vault Nantucket celebrate artists and focus on telling the designer’s story, creating an experience for clients to connect with artists in a personal way.
“I love the mountain west,” Jetter says. “I think the colored gemstones I design will show beautifully in the Phoenix landscape and I’m excited to work with [Grace Renee Gallery owner] Shelly Spence and to be featured at the gallery.”
Experience
Katherine Jetter // Dec. 9 and 10 // 10 a.m.–5 p.m. // Grace Renee Gallery // 7212 E. Ho Road, Carefree // 480-575-8080 // gracereneegallery.com
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