1| Your name, s’il vous plait Margot Miller*
*I consider myself very lucky because, when I left "the best job in the world" (buying many, many thousands of dollars worth of chocolate and candy for a great company), I got to train one of the best people in the world to take my place - Margot! She is a whippersnapper of a gal who's many accomplishments include taking 1st place in a hog wrestling tournament in Texas in 2004. Enough said.
2| Where do you live? Michigan
3| What do you do during the day and at night? During the day, I have the privilege of being the Chocolate & Confections Buyer ("Chocolate Lady") for Zingerman's Deli and a supervisor in the Deli's adjacent coffeeshop. What this means is that by the time you're dragging your bones out of bed, I've probably had a couple of Americanos and by noontime, I've exhausted whatever semblance of a sweet tooth that I have.
In addition to my Deli duties, I spend a large portion of the year editing PLACENOTES, a publication of the Charles Moore Foundation in Austin, Texas (my hometown). Each volume is a collection of cards featuring a art/architecture/culture-centric destination; beautifully photographed and written by the Foundation's director, Kevin Keim.
During my leisure time, I enjoy thumbing through cookbooks, cooking, reading non-fiction, and making mixtapes (fine, they're actually CDs, but mixtapes' will forever and always sound better). Most recently, I've taken up a weekly pilates class; despite knowing that most of the instructor's gentle comments correcting form are directed at me, I love it immensely!
4| What do you look for in a piece of jewelry? What are you drawn to? Silver. Shapes and silhouettes. The delicate and precious. I like versatility and I don't like feeling as though the jewelry is wearing me.
5| Tell me about the jewelry you wear the most. Is there something that you never take off? I wear a couple of pieces with great frequency. One is a small ceramic coffeecup on to which my name is printed. This mini-mug was given to me when I was around the age of eleven by a classmate who had found it in San Francisco. She was familiar with my ceaseless and ever-fruitless attempts at finding anything (anything!) with my name on it. It's gotten quite beat up since then, all chipped and worn. I just recently repaired the handle, which broke after a special someone hugged me a little too hard one afternoon.
The other piece I wear near daily is the small gold knotted ring. This belonged to my mom when she was a teenager. I must thank my jewelry-fantatic younger sister for its presence on my finger; she ran across it while poking around my mom's old jewelry box and declared to my mother that it reminded her of me and that I should have it.
6| What is your jewelry weakness? I'm more and more coming to the conclusion that rings are an absolute weakness for me; perhaps some of that stems from my perception of them as the most masculine of jewelry. Growing up I was the epitome of a tomboy - a trait that I've perhaps not yet discarded completely. They lend me a touch of femininity while staying largely out of my way.
7| What’s the last piece of jewelry you added to your box? The last piece of jewelry added to my box is a piece from Jean Jean Vintage - the TAXCO buckle ring. It's silver. It's a ring. It's pretty precious. I'm pretty predictable. It's been hanging out on my left middle finger pretty consistently.
8| Please tell me a great story about one of the pieces in your jewelry box. A special thing in my jewelry box is a pair of thin silver band bracelets, each stamped with a phrase: 'HAVE COURAGE' and 'BE OF GOOD CHEER.' I had these custom-made a month or two after my grandpa's death in 2006 as a way to commemorate his life and spirit. For as long as I can remember, he signed each and every piece of correspondence to me with "have courage and be of good cheer." It's a mantra I've found increasingly useful to reflect upon and one applicable in just about every aspect of my life. I've photographed the bracelets here with the coffee mug he always began his day with while visiting our country house in East Texas. Aesthetically, I love the simplicity of these bracelets and the way in which they are a hyper-streamlined iteration of some simple silver band bracelets my grandfather crafted while assigned to bed-rest during World War II. Those treasures are presently in safe-keeping with my mom.
9| If price was not an issue, what piece of jewelry would you give to your best friend? Well, it goes without saying that the friend receiving would be my aforementioned younger sister, and if price is not an issue, let's go over the top. Her eyes go wide at the thought of diamonds and Jackie Kennedy is one of her absolute style icons. Let's go for the Lesotho III - the 40 carat diamond ring Onassis gave her in 1968.
{This jewelry box series will "air" every Wednesday this month, with five interviews in all. Leave a comment on all five entries and you'll be entered to win a $50 gift certificate to the shop! Details are here. You can check out last week's interview here.}
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