Jewelry fit for a museum

The silver creations by Cynthia Davis Gale, CHEP ’85, are museum pieces—literally.

Her intricate baubles are hand-hammered by Indonesian crafters, using an ancient process called repousse (pronounced rheh poe zay) that is handed down from generation to generation in Bali. It’s not the labor-intensive silversmithing technique that makes Gale’s output official museum pieces, though. It’s the licensing agreement. Gale, a self-described museum junkie, started out hawking her hand-finished silver jewelry at the Museum Store Association’s trade shows in the early 1990s. Her work caught the attention of officials from the Cleveland Museum of Art, and, by the mid-1990s, one museum had led to another.

Gale, 42, began basing her sleek pieces on each museum’s art, working with curators to create products that would have institutional meaning. One is her Seven Families of Faiths bracelet created for the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Dangling charms represent the seven major world religions.

The pieces sell well to museumgoers because they distill the essence of each institution and often are packaged with curatorial information on the art that inspired them. A piece sold at the Getty is based on art displayed there. Pieces created for Washington’s Kennedy Center are patterned after the theatre’s magnificent crystal chandelier.

Gale’s company also pays a royalty to the institution for each piece sold at a litany of museums—Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History, the National Gallery of Art, San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, as well as such cultural institutions as Lincoln Center.

She just signed with Mount Vernon and got a peek at Martha Washington’s pearls.

In addition to museum shops, Gale’s pieces can be found at high-end retailers such as Neiman-Marcus. Jane Fonda and Oprah Winfrey are among the celebrities who wear jewelry designed by Gale.

Gale says a fashion program offered at UD was her springboard to the New York fashion industry. “They had a wonderful program with the Fashion Institute of Technology that brought me to New York for the first time,’’ she remembers. “That exposure to New York was invaluable. That’s where it all happened for me. Just by providing students with a lot of educational options, they really allow them to consider things they might not have been exposed to otherwise.”

She was able to study for a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and still graduate—cum laude and on time. Gale, who once ran daily on the UD campus, now runs in Manhattan’s Central Park, just a few doors away from the Central Park West home she shares with her husband, Glenn, and their children, Ian and Isabelle. “I feel very fortunate,” she says. “Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed at how lucky I am.’’

The family always spends July in the islands of Java and Bali, where Gale finds exotic gems such as cranberry pearls and blue topaz to incorporate into her designs. “I think it’s important to go to Indonesia each summer with my family,” she says. “There are many people who produce in other countries, and they’ve been there once or maybe they haven’t been there at all. For me, it’s a lifestyle. I live it. I’m at my factories. I’m with my workers. For me, it’s incredibly important that I go there and that my children get to know it. It’s very, very special and unique.”

Her Cynthia Gale Signature Collection, which includes pieces from $40 to $600, incorporates repousse pieces in silver and, occasionally, gold. Her GeoArt by Cynthia Gale collection, with pieces from $20 to $250, is a sophisticated silver grouping that is more popularly priced. One of the best-selling items from the line is the meditation ring that spins when the wearer fidgets with it. It retails for $25 to $50.

Her Geotrend collection of brightly colored stretch bracelets and stretch rings runs from $3 to about $18. Gale says she tries to have an accessory for every pocketbook. “When I see a woman, I’m right away looking at her accessories,’’ Gale says. “A woman’s clothing covers the canvas, but it’s the accessories that provide the details. That is what makes her unique. We want to do what we can to help a woman to look unique.”

One of Gale’s most popular pieces recently has been her Families of Faiths bracelet. She says people have called in tears to order it. The reason, aside from the ecumenical flair of the silver charm bracelet, is that all the profits from its sale are being turned over to tsunami relief organizations. Gale and the National Cathedral, which commissioned the bracelet for its on-site shop, are donating all profits and royalties to organizations working in tsunami-ravaged areas.

Volume 14, Number 1, 2005