I had just returned from an extended, spellbinding trip to the Holy Land of Jerusalem, the Nile River and great pyramids of Egypt, and a remote island off the Kenyan coast called Lamu, and was wearing a piece I had designed from treasures collected on my travels. I had combined antique Egyptian scarabs, an ancient sterling Nefertiti and King Tut, and coral prayer beads I found on a previous trip to Katmandu.
As I was walking through Neiman Marcus in San Francisco, the manager of the jewelry department noticed my necklace. She stopped what she was doing and walked directly towards me to ask about it. When I explained that I had made it from collectables I’d discovered during my recent world travels, she looked me in the eye and told me that she wanted to place an order immediately. This one single moment sent my life in a whole new direction.
That chance meeting in the mid-eighties transformed my passion into a fully successful business, with my jewelry collections being sold in over 400 boutiques and department stores nationwide and internationally. It was a sign that everything I had experienced during my entire life had been directing me to the very moment where I was doing exactly what I loved: creating my art and sharing it with the world.
Since that day I have been exploring penetrating color stories, rich, mesmerizing textures, and dramatic historical periods, amplified by romance and magnificent fashion. I have combined and fused all of these elements into statements of elegant and regal bejeweled adornments.
I can truly claim I live a blessed life, not because of what I own or how much money I have made, but because of how I have chosen to live. I have listened to the dreamer within and tried to make decisions from a place of optimism and gratitude, rather than from fear or lacking. I have always followed my heart’s intuition and guidance, and trusted that inner voice inside that said “Anything is possible if you can feel the dream”. While on one of my trips to India, a wise sage gave me these words to live by: “Do what you love and you will find your way”.
My message to you is this, be true to your inner calling. By creating your dream, you live the joy and share the awakening, and through example you give back a great and noble gift to us all.
Images from left to right: Alana in her San Francisco Atelier; Alana on a return buying trip from Paris; Alana at a cafe in Cairo; Alana in Mombasa, Kenya; Alana at the great Giza pyramid in Egypt.