Brenda Jewelry Co.
January 17, 2020Looking Back: A Conversation with Kenneth Jay Lane
September 2, 2020Costume Jewelry Collectors Int'l is pleased to announce the following speakers participating in CJCI Convention 2020:
Patricia Gostick
Formerly a French and English teacher and a high school principal, currently a vintage costume jewellery collector and dealer, Patricia Gostick has been passionate about McClelland Barclay since she first discovered his costume jewellery designs.
Through twenty years of meandering research, the author has traveled to several parts of the United States in order to track down clues about McClelland’s life. Patricia has published articles about Barclay online and in Vintage Fashion & Costume Jewelry and Illustration magazines. She is thrilled to announce that her book McClelland Barclay: Painter of Beautiful Women and More will be available by the time of the 2020 cjci conference. Her chapter on McClelland’s jewellery contains some surprises!
Patricia Gostick lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband, two daughters, and two golden retrievers.
Please visit Patricia’s online shop, Bijoux Vintage, at https://www.rubylane.com/shop/bijouxvintage.
Gregory Brannan
Greg Brannan’s experience in the costume jewelry industry spans four decades. He started his career as a buyer with Macy’s in 1978 and moved into sales with the Monet Group several years later. As senior vice president he was responsible for overseeing sales, marketing, and in-store service coordinators for the Monet, Trifari, and Marvella brands in department, chain and specialty stores. He worked with Roman and Liz Claiborne before joining Haskell Jewelry as executive vice president in 2003. He was chief marketing officer and executive vice president for Nadri from 2011 through 2018, and is currently the owner and CEO of Jwlz, Inc., a global consulting firm.
Julia Carroll
Julia is a graduate of the University of Delaware with a degree in Elementary Education. For most of her teaching career she ran a computer laboratory for grades K – 8 and briefly taught a basic programming class at the high school level. A strong proponent in self-paced learning, she designed and wrote lessons teaching basic skills on how to use word processing, spreadsheet, and data base software. Using these lessons, each student worked independently and progressed at his or her own pace.
After teaching, Julia worked part-time for a publisher. She read young adult novels and wrote teaching materials for the English classroom.
Throughout her adult life Julia explored her passion for collecting costume jewelry. She loved flea markets. Her children gave her one-dollar bills in her Mother’s Day cards because they knew how happy she was searching for costume jewelry “finds” at the local market.
The idea for her first book “Collecting Costume Jewelry 101: the basics of starting, building & upgrading” grew from her love of teaching, love of jewelry and jewelry books, and her love of writing. The success of the first book lead to two additional books, “Collecting Costume Jewelry 202: the basics of dating jewelry 1935 – 1980,” and “Collecting Costume Jewelry 303: the flip side, exploring costume jewelry from the back.” In addition, Julia and Carol Takahashi co-authored a book titled “The Inspiring Story of Takahashi Bird Pins.” This book features hand-carved and hand-painted bird pins crafted by Carol Takahashi’s grandparents after being released from the Japanese internment camp in Poston, Arizona.
Today Julia is retired from work, but not from collecting. She continues to shop flea markets and antique stores with her daughter. Together they find costume jewelry treasures. For Julia, the greatest treasure of all is the time they spend together sharing the joy of collecting costume jewelry.
Eve Townsend
Eve Townsend holds an MA in Fashion from Ryerson University, where her research focused on the history of costume jewelry and its relation to the democratization of fashion. She continues to research, write, and lecture about jewelry and fashions from the Victorian era to today. Born and raised in Saskatoon, SK, she currently resides in Toronto, ON.
Heleen Andrik van Elburg
Dutch businesswoman, Heleen Andrik van Elburg is the strong woman behind the company Vintage & Costume Jewelry, as well as the owner of a business consulting company in the Netherlands.
Ten years ago, Heleen fell in love with the beautiful jewelry collection with a preference for the collection of Dior from the fifties and sixties. At first, Heleen started to collect pieces for herself until her collection got a bit out of hand. Nowadays you can find Heleen at high-end trade fairs in Europe, she also participates in fashion shows, photoshoots and gives lectures.
Mary Ann Docktor-Smith
Mary Ann Docktor-Smith is a vintage jewelry collector, historian and dealer. She also creates artisan jewelry using vintage and natural stone beads, polymer clay and cork. Mary Ann is an expert on Selro jewelry, and also Florenza jewelry and the history of Dan Kasoff Inc. She has presented on vintage jewelry topics in several venues, including CJCI Annual Convention, Bead Society of Greater Chicago, Chicago Botanic Garden, and 2007 VFCJ Vintage Jewelry Cruise.
Mary Ann's two-part article Costume Jewelry Manufacturing Concepts appeared in the Fall and Winter 2010 issues of Costume Jewelry Collectors International magazine. She has also written several articles for The Jewelry Ring, including a monthly column, Jewel Notes from Mary Ann.
Before becoming a full-time jewelry dealer, Mary Ann spent many years in the financial services industry, first as a business-owner, and later as a relationship manager with a large international bank.
Mary Ann lives in Catalina, Arizona with her husband, Randy Smith, and is an avid reader, traveler, landscape photographer and gourmet cook.
To download the complete list of Special Guests and Speakers for the CJCI Convention 2020, click here.