Our Masters of Their Craft series is monthly features where we give a glimpse into the life, vision, and work of artists, entrepreneurs, craftsmen, musicians, business owners, innovators, and fellow dreamers who excel in their area of expertise. They use their gifting with passion and excellence. Their work is tried and true. By sharing these innovators with others who we know will value the labor of their hands as much as we do, we aim to make a humble attempt at giving them honor

Team member Karen is the vision and hands behind these special posts…she will take it from here.

BARIO NEAL : JEWELERS

It’s not a simple task to find a jewelry shop where pretention is stripped away. But try stepping through the door of 6^th and Bainbridge near South Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The store and the employees will impart their divinely calming presence, and the jewelry will reflect natural, organic artistry that has an unassuming way of feeling right.

Anna Bario and Page Neal, the business partners who pioneered Bario Neal, began collaborating in 2007. When they opened the doors of their jewelry shop, they were the sole jewelers and employees. They managed their Philadelphia store, oversaw Internet sales, and devoted themselves to other full time jobs. As their business grew, Bario Neal became their sole occupation, and after a few years passed, they began to hire a staff of eight to fill the various roles of designer-jeweler, production coordinator, customer service manager, photographer, creative coordinator, and customer liaison. Today, Anna and Page operate as employers, and they have more time to focus on the direction of their company. They also recently opened a showroom in Manhattan to accommodate their national and international clientele.

Bario Neal does not seek to solely make jewelry. They care about the method of their jewelry making and the sources of their stones and metals. They care for more than their success; they possess a deep passion for the advancement of the miners and workers in the cutting and polishing industries. They work with ethically sourced stones, 100% reclaimed metals, and have been some of the first in the industry to import Fairmined gold—a certification with a promise that miners labor in safe environments, receive fair wages, and mine in an environmentally conscious manner.

Work that advances oneself offers fulfillment for a limited time. Bario Neal proves that true prosperity and satisfaction in business result from caring for the well being of others, whether it be an employee, a customer, or the worker in Relave, Peru extracting gold that will soon enter their Philadelphia doors. These jewelers in the midst of what can be an ostentatious industry choose to create all that is beautifully and refreshingly simple.

Anna Bario graciously gave her time to answer a few questions about the business.

At what point in your life did you realize you would like to design and create jewelry?
During college, I did an internship with a metal sculptor and just loved working with metal. From there I started working on a smaller scale and found my way to jewelry. And as a kid I was pretty obsessed with costume jewelry. I loved flea markets and junk shops and would spend hours at Claire’s.

How did you learn your craft?
I started with the basics of metalwork from an internship at a metal studio, and just applied those principles to jewelry. I mostly taught myself but also spent a lot of time at the Crucible in San Francisco, a community metal arts studio where I volunteered and took classes. When Page & I came to Philadelphia and started working with the craftspeople on Jeweler’s Row, some of those people really became mentors to us and helped us learn as we went. We would bring in an idea or project, and they would help us figure out how to realize it.

How did the two of you meet and begin your business?
Page and I met at Oberlin College, and reconnected a few years later at a party when we realized we were both making jewelry and had the same questions about where our materials came from.  I have a very distinct memory of the phone call Page & I had when we decided to start the company together. I was living in San Francisco and Page was in New York. In the mid-2000s, there was very little information and almost no traceability in terms of material sourcing in jewelry. We spent a year or two just researching the issues around ethical sourcing before we opened Bario Neal.

Why Philadelphia? What made you pick 6^th and Bainbridge or open your first store?
Philadelphia was appealing to us as an East Coast city with a lot of creative industry and affordable studio space. Philly also has an incredible community of jewelers and jewelry manufacturers on Jeweler’s Row. We love the Queen Village/Bella Vista neighborhood; it’s close to center city and pretty lively with the independent shops on Fabric Row. Our space was a skateboard shop when we first walked through – it was painted bright orange and blue. But the space felt right and we really enjoy being on the corner.

What are your dreams for the future of Bario Neal?
Oh, we have lots of different ideas for directions Bario Neal could take. We’re about to launch some one of a kind and limited edition pieces that we’re very excited about. We have also talked about pop-up shops in other cities, and branching out to design work outside of jewelry.

What responsibilities do you and Page share with the business?
Page and I share the design work, and we’re starting to bring some of our other jewelers into the process as well. We also share all the strategy and organizational operations of the business, branding and creative direction, and activism and sourcing work. We’ve experimented with dividing up our roles more, but I think part of the strength of the company is that it isn’t just one person’s vision, and we both have a hand in pretty much everything that Bario Neal does. We also have amazing people working with us who contribute to all our projects.

As your business continues to grow, how have your and Page’s roles changed?
It’s often said that the skills that make a good entrepreneur are different from the skills required for running a successful business. That is true. It’s been a long adjustment to be less involved in the day-to-day of making the jewelry and working with customers. When we first opened the store at 6^th and Bainbridge, Page and I were still making all the jewelry ourselves. Having a staff allows us to focus on the larger questions and issues facing Bario Neal, and to think about the future direction of the company. I also think there’s a real shift when you become an employer. Initially, the jewelry was the most important thing we made. Now for Page & I, our primary role is as employers.

Do your jewelers have formal schooling or do you apprentice them? Explain the learning process.
Our jewelers do have a background in metals; all of them studied metals in undergrad, and a few have masters degrees. We do pretty extensive training for jewelers and non-jewelers at Bario Neal. Because our positions on sourcing are complex and specific, and because we try to do so much customer education, there’s a lot to learn. Our employees need to know not just about how we make things at Bario Neal but also about the jewelry industry’s human rights and environmental impacts, and also the initiatives for responsible sourcing that we support.

You use Fairmined gold and ethically, sourced stones. Can you explain those terms and why these practices are significant to you?
We started Bario Neal so that we could focus on improving the impact of the jewelry industry on the environment and the lives of those working in mining and cutting & polishing.  We also set out to create responsibly-sourced jewelry with a clear aesthetic that doesn’t rely on our sourcing as a selling point.

The Fairmined gold certification ensures that the gold has been ethically extracted by artisanal and small-scale miners who are certified under the Fairmined standard. Fairmined certified miners are held to strict environmental, labor, and social and economic development standards. These laborers receive fair wages, work in safe environments, and mine on a small, environmentally conscious scale.

We were part of the first import of Fairmined gold to the U.S. this year. The gold we’re using now is from the Aurelsa mine in Relave, Peru. It’s very exciting, as Fairmined is the first precious metal available to us that isn’t just reducing its impact (as in the 100% recycled metals we use). It’s constructive capitalism, using a premium to support good practices and community development that is self-directed by the miners.

Were there any bumps along the way in starting Bario Neal? Any set backs or moments of hesitation?
There have certainly been challenges, but not much hesitation. Page & I have had a clear idea of what we wanted to create since the early days. In the first few years we were both working other jobs and putting in crazy hours at Bario Neal. There were financial struggles early on and plenty of lessons. For the first several years, it was difficult to do anything beyond Bario Neal.

How did the store in Manhattan come to be? How is your life different now living in NYC as opposed to Philly?
We opened the showroom in Manhattan last year because we wanted to give more of our customers the opportunity to see the work in person. We work with people all over the country and internationally, and so many of them travel through NY. The showroom allows us to reach not just New Yorkers but so many other people traveling through.

Can you describe one or two of your favorite custom pieces? 
This is one of my favorite recent custom pieces. I really love the balance of the rough stones with the emerald cut diamond and the rounded band.

Where do you find inspiration for your designs? Who develops new designs?
Inspiration for the designs can come from anything – the shape of a stone, a painting, definitely the natural world.  The latest series of pieces I’ve been working on take inspiration from Kabuki masks and Greek architecture.

How does your work challenge you on a creative level?
I think the parameters of wearable jewelry can force you to be creative in interesting ways, and certainly the basic forms can be limiting. It’s a challenge and an honor as a designer working with engagement and commitment rings, that the piece will be worn every single day.

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