Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

It was serendip­i­ty that led Josanne Mark to dis­cov­er a tal­ent for jew­el­ry de­sign.While she was at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies study­ing psy­chol­o­gy and hu­man re­source man­age­ment, Mark had to re­string a bro­ken bead­ed neck­lace giv­en to her by her friend."I did it in a dif­fer­ent de­sign–and I got so many com­pli­ments. I took some ex­tra thread and got bits and pieces from my jew­el­ry box and de­signed a few pieces of jew­el­ry, which I then sold," Mark said.This sur­pris­ing turn in her ca­reer path, meant she had a thriv­ing al­ter­na­tive trade on cam­pus.In­ter­est­ing­ly, Mark said jew­el­ry and fash­ion were nev­er high on her agen­da as a child. She was al­ways aca­d­e­m­ic and was vale­dic­to­ri­an when she grad­u­at­ed at the Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary school.Af­ter grad­u­at­ing from UWI, she ap­plied to sev­er­al com­pa­nies for work but did not im­me­di­ate­ly get through."Af­ter three months of send­ing out re­sumes, I re­alised that I want­ed to go full-time in­to my jew­el­ry mak­ing busi­ness," Mark said.It took a bit of con­vinc­ing her par­ents that jew­el­ry-mak­ing was her pas­sion but even­tu­al­ly she got the sup­port and went to the Fash­ion In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in Man­hat­tan where she grad­u­at­ed cum laude (out­stand­ing ho­n­ours).Mark has suc­cess­ful­ly used T&T's rich cul­tur­al lega­cy to craft fine jew­el­ry pieces us­ing se­mi-pre­cious stones such as amethysts, turquoise, fresh­wa­ter pearls and Swarovs­ki crys­tals in amaz­ing gold and sil­ver set­tings.

She's now busy prepar­ing her 2014 col­lec­tion.

Some of her ex­quis­ite pieces were re­vealed at Stech­ers in Gulf City, La Ro­maine re­cent­ly.In an in­ter­view, Mark said her lat­est col­lec­tion in­volves the use of nat­ur­al flo­ra and fau­na from T&T.

Pick­ing leaves from her home­town at Fyz­abad, Mark has been able to elec­tro­form the leaves and coat them in fine sil­ver and gold. Ac­cord­ing to the Jew­el­ry Mak­ing Web site, elec­tro­form­ing al­lows the jew­el­er to take or­gan­ic ob­jects and coat them with a lay­er of re­al met­al. "You have the aes­thet­ic of some­thing cre­at­ed by na­ture. It is mag­nif­i­cent be­cause I took re­al leaves and elec­tro­formed them in 24-carat gold and fine sil­ver," she said. "These pieces are mak­ing it big abroad and many peo­ple want to know what type of leaves they are," Mark said.

"There is a spe­cial con­nec­tion I have with the pieces know­ing they are nat­u­ral­ly and lo­cal­ly made. There is a spe­cial feel­ing when cus­tomers pur­chase a piece." Mark said she was in­ter­est­ed in pre­serv­ing some of T&T's her­itage.Say­ing she was ea­ger to launch a leaves col­lec­tion in 2014, Mark said she want­ed her hand­craft­ed pieces to be af­ford­able for every­one."My pieces range in price from $200 per set of ear­rings to $8,000. You re­al­ly don't have a wide se­lec­tion of good qual­i­ty hand­made pieces in Trinidad. Lots of peo­ple are do­ing good work but a lot of jew­el­ry in the stores and malls is not lo­cal, or hand­craft­ed. They are for­eign and are mass-pro­duced," she ex­plained.She said her first line of jew­el­ry is made us­ing Swarovs­ki crys­tals, fresh­wa­ter pearls and gem­stones while the oth­er line fo­cus­es on met­al­work."I will say that the met­al pieces are my favourite. It was a long ar­du­ous jour­ney study­ing abroad and that's where I re­al­ly honed a lot of my skills," Mark said.

Most of Mark's gem­stones come from South Amer­i­ca."I use the agate druzy stones, a nat­ur­al for­ma­tion where crys­tals grow in small clus­ters in the earth. The stone is tak­en out, cut and pol­ished around its nat­ur­al for­ma­tion so you get very in­ter­est­ing shapes with­out in­ter­fer­ing in how it was formed," she ex­plained.These nat­ur­al for­ma­tion's are Mark's favourites."I am us­ing a lot of fresh­wa­ter pearls," she said.One of her favourite pieces is a pearl brooch.She added that jew­el­ry­mak­ing should be in­tro­duced as a course at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T."I think there is a lot of cre­ativ­i­ty in T&T and I will be hap­py to work with UTT if they de­cide to bring out a pro­gramme in Fash­ion/Jew­el­ry man­u­fac­tur­ing," she said.

Con­vinc­ing Dad

At first, her fa­ther, Ter­rence Mark, did not ap­prove of her de­ci­sion to pur­sue jew­el­ry de­sign as a ca­reer. She was pre­pared to fund her stud­ies in New York on her own."My fa­ther was frown­ing when I told him. I didn't ask for sup­port. I start­ed to look for loans."Then my dad re­alised I was se­ri­ous and the sup­port came af­ter­wards. To­day he is my biggest sup­port­er."Mark said her moth­er Joan­na is her great­est mo­ti­va­tor and stood by her side from the start."My moth­er sup­ports any and every­thing I want to do. She may have fears and would ex­press those, but once I con­vince her that this is some­thing I want to do, I will work hard at it. My mom al­ways says noth­ing is in­sur­mount­able if you put your best foot for­ward," Mark said.Some of her pieces were ex­hib­it­ed in Man­hat­tan dur­ing a show last year.Any­one want­i­ng to pur­chase Mark's de­signs can con­tact her at call 798-5474.