Can You Ever Have Enough Jewelry? Gwen Reese: No. Unequivocably, no.
There are times over the past five maybe 10 years that I thought, yes, you’ve got enough jewelry. You don’t need another piece. You’ve got more than you can ever wear in a lifetime. So you need nothing else. You’re not buying another piece of jewelry. And I committed to that… until I saw the next piece of jewelry. And I bought it and so now I’ve stopped saying that. I’m just like no we can never get enough because we just can’t.
We see something beautiful that resonates with us. Our energy just connects with it. There’s not a piece I buy just because it’s a piece of jewelry. Everything I buy just reaches out for me. I connect with it. It causes me to tingle even. I’m drawn to it. Sometimes I look for something… if it’s a crystal but most of the time I’m just out and about and…I’m not in jewelry stores because there’s something I’m supposed to get…I don’t even know what it is but when my Spirit says go, I go and I find what I want.
Jewelry calls me.
I’m in my bed with the flu and I get a call from a shop I shop in and they say we have this piece that nobody else can wear but you. You’ve got to see it. I get up out of my sick bed and I go there and I look at it and I say oh, that’s beautiful but I think it’s too big for me. And they said nothing’s too big for you and I put it on a chain and I put it here on my chest and I said oh no, this is for me. And I ended up buying it. So in this instance, the energy, the stone pulled me through this phone call. I mean it’s amazing.
Here are Gwen Reese's most recent jewelry purchases:
COWRIE SHELL NECKLACE
I’m very strong with my African culture, so when I saw that cowrie shell collar, I knew I had to have it (see necklace at left). I wore it with solid black. Everybody can’t wear it, so it stayed in the shop forever and ever because most people are intimidated by it. Everybody can’t wear something that big, but I could and it was perfect. Cowrie shells are very much a part of our African culture. This is one of my favorite pieces. I’ve worn it twice. I wore it for my 70th birthday this year.
COURREGES NECKLACE
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This one called me. I wasn’t planning to go to this shop that day but it called me there. This is by a designer, Andre Courreges, who invented go-go boots and the mini-skirt (see necklace at right). It’s called a runway piece; the models modeling his clothes wore it on the runway. So that’s an original vintage piece that I felt like investing in.
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Labradorite stone (see necklace at left) is reflective of the deepest part of the ocean and the deepest part of yourself. So it’s about your inner self, and the evolution of your inner self to its higher self. It has a lot more qualities, but that’s the one that resonates with me most. So normally I have on the ring and the earrings because I match everything. I do like that.
Have you always liked jewelry?
Yes, but in my early 20s, my jewelry wasn’t big and bold. The boldness of me had not yet come to the surface yet. But it was jewelry. I always liked silver because it’s softer. A girlfriend and I, we started a jewelry company… and a jazz promotion company. We were both young divorcees, both in our 30s, like 31, and we just took this leap and we promoted a huge jazz concert with Jimmy Smith and Nat Adderley and the other side of the business was jewelry. It was called Yemaya. My girlfriend wore the gold and I wore the silver.
So I would wear all these chains of silver, layered with different things on it and the rings and the bracelets. Even my wedding rings were white gold. But then my Spirit evolved and as my Spirit evolved, my taste evolved and I went to crystals because they are of the Earth, they are of God, they have energy. I believe that energy is a part of us all the time. When I started wearing crystals, my life just blew up in terms of jewelry. So I have hardly anything that’s not a crystal or natural. My taste just got bigger and bigger and bigger, not just in the quantity, but in the size of the jewelry. I’m a big woman. I’m a bold woman. My clothing style is bold. My jewelry should be bold. What else could it be? I can’t wear diminutive little pieces.
How does it make you feel, wearing all this jewelry?
It doesn’t make me feel anything. It’s who I am. It’s just who I am. Some jewelry, like my bracelets I never take off. I do choose my stones based on what I want to accomplish, what I think I need that day. And sometimes I don’t have a need and so I just stand in front of my jewelry chests and let them choose me.
Gwen Reese, community leader and activist
Interviewed by Bijoux Bios August 1, 2019 at the Hawthorne Bottle Shop on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, FL
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