In the beautiful Bluegrass Region of Central Kentucky, surrounded by horse farms and limestone fences (handcrafted without mortar by early immigrants to the area), local artists James Rich and Diana Thomas have been building their own handcrafted legacy with their jewelry design business, BSpoken Designs LLC.
Thomas, who is a special needs teacher for the local school system, began making and selling polymer clay heart necklaces in 2010 to raise funds for medical treatment for a family member’s son in Texas. Carter was born with a rare genetic condition and required special treatment. Thomas stepped in to help with her “Hearts for Carter” campaign. That evolved into her Wild Hearts jewelry.
Rich, an estimator/engineer at Corman and Associates has a Master’s Degree in Architecture from The University of Kentucky and was volunteering his time at Thomas’ school. Their meeting was serendipitous.
As a reward to her students for doing a good job through the week, Rich would come in on Fridays and work with them on art projects. “I worked with the kids on those projects and I did the Kentucky Kids Day at the school,” Rich said. “That’s where I came in.”
Thomas, who obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre Management from Berea College, invited Rich to a local art show. “I went, and saw some of her jewelry and thought it was interesting,” Rich said of Thomas.
Rich’s wife, Jamie, wanted to get into making jewelry as a craft hobby and asked him to make a polymer clay cane for her, based on his pen and ink drawings. “I made her some beads and we made a few pieces and we got off of that and that cane just sat around for a year.”
Fast-forward to the art show, where he connected with Thomas’ jewelry design. “At that time, I was already doing the petals and that is what interested him,” she said. “I remember that I had one piece that actually got him interested. He loved what he said was the movement of it, where the petals were.
That’s kind of why I started out with the heart. Over time, it was like, I can do a circle or a diamond shape, or whatever.”
Admiring her work, Rich handed over the cane that had been sitting out for the past year. “I gave her (Thomas) one of my canes and asked her if she could make my wife a pendant for Christmas.”
Thomas made the pendant for Jamie and took it to school with her where Rich remembered people going crazy for it.
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