Pearls As One (PAO) Student Focus — Pearls As One

By Reema Farooqui Atlanta-based Jeremy Wallace’s interest in pearls piqued upon seeing an oyster-opening video on TikTok a few years ago. Further research into the lustrous geminspired Wallace’s own affinity for pearls and gave way to his online jewelry company, Trident Pearls, founded in 2022. “Pearl is my thing because it’s the only gem that you can pull straight from an oyster, clean and set, and wear immediately without having to do any kind of processing,” enthuses Wallace. Wallace is a self-taught jeweler who works out of a home-based studio. He makes his own jewelry, drilling and setting pearls along the...

By Reema Farooqui   Linda Quinn, Jewelry Designer   Stafford, Missouri–based Linda Quinn began designing and crafting jewelry during her undergraduate days at William Woods University. She secured a degree in both art and business, afterwards working for several retailers and manufacturers while honing her bench jeweler skills. By 1985, she debuted her own eponymous business, Linda Quinn Designs. Her aesthetic is defined by clean silhouettes, graphic cuts of gemstones, and oversize cultured pearls of all types. Her affinity for pearls led her to take the Pearls As One (PAO) course, which she completed in July 2021. One of the...

The 2023 Volume I Pearls As One Student Focus Michelle Buettner explains her career as a jewelry copywriter.

Pearls As One Student Focus: Hope Estella Waggoner, Pearl Lover & Student Hope Estella Waggoner’s passion for the humanities and the beauty of nature helped define her love of precious gemstones, including pearls. But it was an ad from the Tahitian government in her social media feed that led the mother and native Texan to the Pearls As One (PAO) course, where she quickly took up Tahiti’s grant offer to study cultured pearls. “Learning about pearls has been a mind-opening experience for me,” says Waggoner. PAO made the knowledge and history of cultured pearls accessible to a wide range of students, and...