MORGANTOWN — Katherine Spencer — she’s the Spencer, in Spencer & Kuehn Fine Jewelry Studio — loves telling the story.
When the customer blurted out, “Holy sh–!,” that is.
Which, upon reflection, might be the only thing one could say, while regarding a 21st century heirloom for the first time.
It was in response to the brooch he commissioned for his wife.
Spencer laughed.
So did everyone else in the studio at its new Pierpont Centre location, where the two jewelry designers moved three weeks ago, after 40 years at 320 High St., downtown.
“He just kind of blurted it out,” Spencer said. “I loved it. That’s exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”
“Exquisite,” might be a more-standard, jewelry-studio word for the work, and its delicate vines, flowers and etchings, all created and crafted by Spencer, to catch the light, this way and that.
She caught on with her artistic muse quite early. That was back home in Rochester, N.Y., when she was a little girl, compelled to make art.
When she was 6 years old, she was cracking walnuts and scooping out the insides, which she’d then fill with glitter and anything else shiny that would fit.
It didn’t take Spencer long to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
When it came time for college, she stayed in her hometown and enrolled in the Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating with honors in that school’s jewelry, metalsmithing and art education programs.
Reinvention, by design
At Spencer & Kuehn, one can literally hear the music of the muse.
It’s in the whirring of the drills and other precision equipment wielded by bench jewelers Shea Tronco and Jamie Holton.
It’s in the calculator clicks and paper shuffling generated by customer service manager Carla Leo, who greets customers, along with her multitude of other duties.
And it’s definitely in the spirited back-and-forth between Spencer and her business partner John Kuehn — he’s the Kuehn, in Spencer & Kuehn Fine Jewelry Studio — the economics professor who reinvented himself to become a jeweler and an artist.
The world of numbers can be absolute. There’s always one answer. Except in the case of their jewelry studio, Kuehn said, where there were two solutions.
“Katherine wanted her own studio, and I didn’t want to retire.”
He didn’t want to be an economics professor, either. At least not forever.
That’s what brought the northern New Jersey native — who grew up minutes away from New York City — to Morgantown after his degrees from Rutgers, the University of Vermont, and the University of Tennessee.
The newly minted Ph.D. joined WVU’s business and economics faculty in 1969.
“This place was completely different,” he said.
Shopping malls were still off in the distance and so was Interstate 79: That asphalt artery was still under construction in the Mountain State.
There was no PRT, no sprawling medical complex in Evansdale, and fans of the Mountaineers still took in their home games at Mountaineer Field below Woodburn Hall.
A business professor with an entrepreneurial bent had to look downtown.
“Downtown Morgantown was everything,” he said. “You had 10 jewelry stores downtown.”
In the 1970s, he would join them.
Diamonds in the rough (and other origin stories)
An office in the Mon Building eventually led to a jewelry store downtown for Kuehn.
“I can still sing his radio jingle,” Leo said, laughing.
Kuehn became a certified gemologist and branched out. He became known for his custom work.
When he thought he wanted to retire after 40 years, his two daughters took over the business and hired Spencer, who made it to West Virginia by way of Wetzel County’s school district.
She taught art at Hundred High School and Long Drain Elementary — working as a bench jeweler in and around Rochester wasn’t that satisfying for an artist who wanted to cast her own designs.
Teaching might mean a stable paycheck, she said, on top of opportunities to do just that.
Like many who move here, she was taken by the Mountain State. Like Kuehn, however, she was ready to re-invent herself, also.
When the Kuehn daughters stepped aside, he was ready to step back in.
“So Katherine and I talked,” he said. “And here we are.”
With the majority of its regular customers in the Cheat Lake area, the recent move to Pierpont Centre just made sense, Kuehn said.
“And we’re a ‘destination’ store,” he said. “You generally don’t just drop into a jewelry store and say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna buy a diamond ring.'”
Ringing endorsement
The owners will host a grand-opening party from 6-9 p.m. Friday at the new studio, which is located at 716 Venture Drive, in Pierpont Centre.
Spencer and Kuehn are anxious to show off the place, they said.
In the meantime, you can visit https://spencerandkuehn.com/ for an online look at what they do.
As the owners said, it’s the place for a unique creation, or the recasting of your dad’s wedding band or your cherished great-grandma’s earrings into that coveted 21st-century heirloom.
Tom Milne walked in the other day to pick up a ring the studio did for him.
He didn’t say, “Holy sh–!,” but his response was just as enthusiastic.
“Oh, man. Exactly what I wanted. Perfect. You’re not gonna beat the workmanship. They create all this stuff right here.”
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