Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kowa Mattern. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kowa, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
It’s funny because I never really considered myself a creative person. I started out my career in sales and stuck with the more numbers-focused area of the field, eventually becoming a business analyst. However, I always worked for smaller businesses, and that inevitably meant that I was never only doing one job. The creative side of my brain slowly grew as I got more involved with product design, website building and marketing. And then when I first started my jewelry line, Herself Collections, I started out sourcing finished jewelry from women artisans (hence where the name came from). As the pandemic hit, I was at home a lot more than before, and I started out testing making my own small pieces to fill in gaps in the collection. Eventually, I started making more and more pieces until I found that most of my site was filled with my original designs.
To answer the question, I keep the creativity that I fostered over the years alive by never forcing myself to design for the sake of designing. I don’t follow the classic fashion calendar of launching new releases every few months or for holidays. Instead, I let the designs come naturally and release new styles whenever I am happy with a new piece. I also am always stopping at gemstone and mineral shops during my travels to find inspiration from the stones themselves. I really love working with natural stones, pearls, gems, etc because nature is the best inspiration.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My name is Kowa Mattern, owner of the jewelry brand Herself Collections. Most of my pieces are handcrafted by me, and I also specialize in hand-knotting pearls. I work exclusively with natural stone, gems and pearls, because I believe nature does it best! I also believe that natural materials have a better energy, and with something like jewelry that is meant to be worn over and over, I think it is important to wear items with good, natural energy.
I am always adding new pieces to the collection, and my latest releases are focused on malachite, a beautiful green colored stone that has natural striations, making each stone unique. It is not always easy working with real stone. For example, when creating a pair of earrings, you want two stones that are are a similar size, width, etc, but when 2 stones are never the same, it takes extra time to pair two together that complement each other.
I also love working on custom pieces with clients to create something that is truly unique to them. I have a client who was looking for a gift for her sister and we created a piece in her favorite colors, using black spinel stone and sterling silver.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The first quality/skill that comes to mind is time management. This is a quality that I am still working on today because I often underestimate how long it takes to make my jewelry pieces. So when I am preparing for a market or making a larger order for a boutique, I often find myself working late nights right before the orders are due. I also make a lot of pieces to order, so if a big order comes through my online shop, I often have to stop whatever else I am doing, and focus on that. I have slowly built a system that tracks how long it takes to make each piece, so I can correctly calculate the time needed. For example, my hand-knotted pearl necklace, the Selene, takes about 2 hours to complete. I am lucky, though, that I am able to focus on Herself Collections full time.
A second quality /skill is maintaining relationships and building new ones. So much of where I am today is because I have had amazing help from those around me. Even just having friends who wear my jewelry and get asked about where it came from, has created a lot of organic growth. I also love being able to meet and connect with other small business owners at markets. We can share advice and tips from our unique perspective and build a community of support.
And the third quality/skill is knowing when to just move on. Owning a small business comes with so many small and big challenges that I really wasn’t fully prepared for when I started out my journey. There are a million ways in which you can get distracted and disheartened when running a business, so the ability to just put some things aside and move on is really beneficial in the long-run.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
One of the most impactful things my parents did for me was to not pressure me into living a life they would have wanted for themselves. I have a lot of friends who are in certain fields or careers because it is what their parents wanted them to be, and sometimes it works out great, but other times they feel unsatisfied with their lives and jobs. I have to imagine that as a parent, it is really hard not to put your own unfulfilled dreams onto your child, because you just want what is best for them, but at the end of the day, I don’t think there is any one formula for finding fulfillment or joy in life. My parents always encouraged my siblings and I to find out own paths and discover what we were naturally drawn to. Although, that probably doesn’t always work out either, and if you asked my first grade self what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have declared “cowgirl” while proudly wearing my red-tasseled cowgirl boots.
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