World traveler to jewelry maker

Jewelry maker Kiona van Rhee-Wilson comes from a long line of entrepreneurs.

"All of my family is self-employed," said van Rhee-Wilson, 31, a Dutch native who grew up in Rotterdam and moved to Raleigh in 1996.

She started working on her own at age 12 with her mother's assistance. For almost a decade, she was a fashion model, and eventually she was walking runways in Paris, Tokyo, New York and beyond. Her mother traveled with her initially, and then the teenager was on her own.

Van Rhee-Wilson met her husband, Greg Wilson, in 1995 over the Internet.

"It was very early Internet," she said. "After I did so much traveling, it was really neat to be in newsrooms and chat rooms and talk to somebody from Japan, Australia, the U.S."

The pair's friendship on the Web came well before online matchmaking sites were available.

"It was just one of those cheesy things. ... As we talked more, we had all these things in common," she said. "I came to visit him in Raleigh and basically never left."

They married in 1997 and have a 6-year-old son.

Van Rhee-Wilson had artistic leanings but wasn't sure in which direction.

"I always wanted to be creative, but couldn't find an outlet. I'd literally sit down with paper and brushes and pencils, but I just couldn't do it," she said.

During a photo shoot in New York, she learned that her agent was letting her go. Although she found a new one the next day, it was a turning point.

Another door opens

"I had a friend who had a successful jewelry business and she happened to be in New York for a trade show. I was at crossroads, about to get married, and I didn't know if I was going to keep modeling. I was sitting in her booth and crying and she said, 'If you end up not modeling, I'll give you a job.' "

That friend was Cynthia Deis of Raleigh, who ran a large jewelry-making business before focusing on her bead store, Ornamentea.

Deis was true to her word, and the model turned jewelry maker, finding her path along the way.

"I took to her things really well, and I ended up working with Cynthia for eight years, evolving into production manager and design assistant," said van Rhee-Wilson, who also taught jewelry-making classes at the shop.

When Deis decided to turn her full attention to the shop, van Rhee-Wilson took the opportunity to strike out on her own, in 2006. "I started to find my own creative outlet," she said.

Made of money

Being in the fashion industry informed her jewelry, but in reverse.

"So much about fashion is about what's 'in' now. It's artificial," she said. "I wanted to ignore trends and just make what feels natural, what inspires me in the moment."

Her company is called Lucky Accessories, accessories have made way for jewelry, which is what she'll have for sale Aug. 22 at the annual Lazy Daze Arts & Crafts Festival in Cary.

Van Rhee-Wilson calls her earrings, necklaces and rings "multimedia jewelry" because they include a variety of objects.

For instance, years of international travel influenced her Made of Money line, in which small clusters of tiny beads are affixed to coins from around the world.

"I had buckets of coins from all these different countries, and I didn't want to toss them. I came across the really neat drilling tool and started drilling the coins, hammering them a bit, and putting little beads on them. Now I've sold so many that I have to periodically hop onto eBay to get coins," she said. "Some of them are really fun, like they have square and scalloped edges. A lot of Japanese coins have holes in them."

Learning to solder led her to two other popular lines. Little Reminders are pendants carrying inspirational words, such as "hope" and "strength," encased in glass sealed by sterling silver. They were the first thing she made that took off. Then came "Vintage Wallflower," another encased piece, these holding eye-catching pieces of vintage wallpaper.

Standing out

While she still loves beads, van Rhee-Wilson knew she wanted to expand. "There are so many people making jewelry out there, you have to have something different. All my pieces allude to something."

Her most recent allusion is "Peas in a Pod," where she lines up a few pearls or uses mother of pearl bracketed by sterling silver. She hadn't given them a name yet, but "my customers made that connection before I did. Then I definitely promoted it."

Women often buy them in numbers that correspond to their personal life, for instance a three-pearl pod if they have three children or as gifts to siblings or best friends.

"I'm about to make them in crystal with birthstone colors," said van Rhee-Wilson, who also will add corresponding "Peas in a Pod" bracelets to match the necklaces and earrings she sells.

Thanks to the "Peas," she said, business has really taken off, so much so that she was able to move to a small studio space with other artists inside Knockabout, at City Market in downtown Raleigh.

Van Rhee-Wilson also is one of the founders of the Handmaidens, a Raleigh artist and crafters collective that participates in or sponsors shows throughout the year. She loves the human contact that The Handmaidens, festivals and now a retail space offer, though she has sold her work through her own Web site, which she designed and maintains, from the beginning.

"It's one of things I've always loved and why I'm part of the collective. I love talking to customers and also being around other creative people and people who own their own businesses. We often work with the same materials, but we put our own spin on them. It's so inspiring."

Send suggestions to diane@bydianedaniel.com.