Sisters' talent produces 'wearable art'

By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer

Jan Zink and her sister, Katie Teribury, probably have the biggest collection of lost buttons, earrings, faux jewels and water glass east of the Mississippi. The Peachtree City residents also have a talent for matching the perfect stone with a funky earring and gluing them together with a few of grandma's old buttons to make a one-of-a-kind piece of wearable art.

Their pins will be on display at Shakerag this weekend, booth number 79 near the Moonwalk, in the same place they've exhibited for several years.

"It's a sister thing," Zink said, explaining their jewelry business. "It gives us time to have a good time together. We like to do Shakerag and we like to do the school ones [craft fairs], too. People come looking for us."

Teribury recalled one customer who buys three or four pieces every year at Shakerag. "'I get my Christmas shopping done here and it will be going all over the country,' she tells us."

The duo got started with their eclectic gathering and gluing about six years ago, inspired by a friend from Detroit who also creates jewelry from junk. "She showed us the ins and outs and we learned more through trial and error on our own," Zink said. Teribury has expanded their line to include decorative glass bottles, boxes and necklaces. "I do a lot of the earth stuff with water glass from Michigan and upstate New York," she said. Mass quantities of buttons, beads, old earrings and pins are imported from up north.

Zink's friends are a big source of her bits and pieces. "I'm in sales, so I'm out and about and can stop in antique stores and flea markets to look," she said about her ever-changing supply.

Neither sister has had formal art training, but both credit their maternal grandmother with their innate ability to create. "The first time someone called us artists, we looked at each other and said, 'I'd never thought of that,'" Zink recalled.

When Zink is making her pins, she's in her element. "The kids know: Don't knock on the door, mom's making pins. This to me, seriously, it's therapy, it's therapeutic."

The combination of different pieces of metal, gem and pearl are purely original, according to the sisters.

"All of a sudden it hits you," Zink said. "Like last night, I made four of them. I snip them (like the backs off the earrings) and using jeweler's epoxy, glue it all together and put a pin back on it."

"They almost create themselves as you're going along," Teribury added.

"When you see someone wearing it, that to me is the greatest compliment. We put a little bit of ourselves in this," Zink said. "And our last words to them [customers] are, 'Thank you and wear it in good health.'"

Not only do patrons get a little art and a blessing, but a story as well. "We tell them where we got the pieces, even about the bottles. You're not just buying jewelry, you're buying a little bit of love," Zink said.

While the business has been tuned into holiday sales, both said they are enthusiastically exploring new marketing avenues. Spring craft shows and a foray into home shows, where customers can incorporate some of their own mementos into pieces, are possibilities.

Teribury and her husband, Tom, a longtime teacher in the Fayette County school system, have two children, Tommy, 9, and Madelyn, 5 weeks. Zink is mom to Shannon, a college student at Eastern Michigan State, and Joey, a ninth grader at McIntosh High School.

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