BETTY COOKE INTERVIEW

I visited Betty Cooke on June 13, 2001. We sat on wire chairs by a table in a courtyard outside her shop, The Store Ltd, in The Village of Cross Keys, Baltimore. She looked beautiful in black and Betty Cooke jewelry. As we conversed, she observed all that was going on around us, obviously enjoying her surroundings and the passers- by. A shopper’s dog, surprised by a life size statue of a cow in front of her store, barked excitedly. It was wonderful and funny and we laughed-- a delightful interruption!

Betty Cooke at The Store Ltd

Betty Cooke is gracious. She is witty, warm and, above all , an artist whose jewelry evolves from her drawings. She is a perfectionist and an intrinsic modernist. Her designs, created from the synthesis of mathematics, architecture, and sculpture combined with the catalysts of her own unique wit and spontaneity, have forever secured her place as an icon within the tradition of modernist jewelry.

A thread ran through each topic of our conversation and kept coming up again and again. It’s her customers that are of primary importance. Even with all the awards, museum shows, exhibitions, and articles which have brought Betty Cooke to prominence, it’s the customers who 'like what she does' who commission her to create birthday and anniversary pieces, who keep coming back over the years for more jewelry, it’s 'the people' who continue to inspire her.

the interview (please find questions by Marbeth Schon on the left and replies by Betty Cooke on the right)
First of all I want to say thank you for allowing me to interview you. I’ve been looking forward to this for an entire year!	Well that’s very nice!
I would like to know more about your early life. What do you remember about your earliest inspiration to be an artist? silver, onyx necklace	Well, that goes way back you know. Way back. I think even as a child I always collected things that I thought were beautiful and it ended up being quite a big collection—pebbles and shells and seedpods and then I used to draw a lot and so it was just automatic that I went to an art college. This was during the war so I actually took teacher education because I had to get a degree and that was the only way you could get a degree through the Maryland Institute at Hopkins. I was exposed to all kinds of things. The jewelry was not my intention. In the beginning I wanted to be a sculptor, but this was during the war and after the war and there weren’t many avenues for that at the time so I thought, well, I’ll earn a living and so I’ve been doing that ever since with jewelry. The intention was just to make nice pieces and it just grew, and I thought this won’t last long and I’ll get into something else. And here it is 50 years later!
Were your parents artists?	My father painted, but he wasn’t a professional artist and my mother was into music, but she was artistic in other ways, and her two brothers were engineers so I had this combination of the creative free (spirit) and the logical.

It says in the book Messenger’s of Modernism that you apprenticed with a local jeweler during your early college years at John Hopkins University and the Maryland Institute, College of Art. Who was that?

silver ring

Her name was Carothers and she did flowers, little delicate flowers like roses and all kinds of things that I didn’t really understand or didn’t really appreciate except that she was nice and she taught me how to solder. I always liked the stems. I always liked the simple parts of what I put together so I just automatically went into this simple approach which I guess is instinctive.

Did she allow you to make your own pieces?

I was helping her but it was easy to get a torch and set up. Oh she was fine and very nice to me.

Was she an inspiration to go into jewelry instead of sculpture?

silver, wood pendant

No, I think the inspiration was the fact that people liked what I did. I had a very tiny house that was a shop and it was just very nice to have architects, designers, professional doctors-- I was in a doctor’s neighborhood and they somehow liked what I was doing and that was exciting.

But I did do other things all those years. My husband and I designed for architects and we did showrooms and offices and commercial things and exhibitions. We did an exhibition for the Corcoran Gallery one year so we were into all good design at that time.

Which particular show or award do you feel helped to launch your career-- helped you take off?	I’ve been taking off the whole time! I don’t know. I haven’t done everything yet! It was very exciting to have contact with the Walker Art Center. My friend and I camped across the country and I had a little box of jewelry that I was selling along the way and I went to the Walker Art Center and they were just putting the show together and it just fell in line so they included about six or eight pieces of mine in their show. It was called Good Design Jewelry and this was in the '40s.
So you worked your way across country selling jewelry? silver, wood, cord pendant	I had a box of jewelry and went in and introduced myself and that was it. Actually, what I was really trying to do at that time--there were some very handsome showrooms for furniture, for Knoll and Eames and all these wonderful people, and I had a series of stores that I thought should carry contemporary jewelry and I was trying to talk them into display cases and having a section of jewelry which was very related to the furniture and the lighting and the whole design revolution because there were no jewelry stores that would sell that (kind of jewelry)-- there wasn’t anything except maybe the American Craft Council in New York. And there weren’t galleries at that time that would take it.
Jewelry wasn’t accepted as an art form?	No, not really. There weren’t any places to sell it. There was a store in Bloomfield Hills that sold it. So that was my mission, but it didn’t work out very well. There was a store called ¹Frasers (in San Francisco) that carried contemporary furniture.
What was it like teaching returning World War II veterans? You must not have been much older than they were. gold, onyx bracelet	Well, at that time the Maryland Institute had about 80 students and one of them was a boy and the rest of us were woman. This was during the war. So then all of a sudden (after the war) they had about 300 or so. I had classes of 60 and 70 students and I taught something called design and materials which was how to work with all kinds of materials like leather, wood, gold, steel, and also the basic elements of design that were necessary. Yes, it was very exciting—it was wonderful!
I read that you had to teach them soldering so it was a lot of technique you were teaching and not just design.	Oh, it was technique—we had welding and soldering and there was a woodshop.
How did you manage teaching, running a shop and making jewelry? You must have been working all the time.	Sure! You just did it!

You have had many awards throughout your career. Which have meant the most to you?

gold, pyrite, diamond, rings

I guess ²DeBeers was nice because it was International. At the time, the person in charge of it really liked my whole concept. It wasn’t just that award. She liked what I was trying to do. She saw a lot of pieces of mine. That was very nice and led to working with Geoffrey Beane.

So you became internationally known through that?

In a way. And it was in Vogue and Bazaar.

Was the retrospective exhibit at your alma mater, the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1995 especially meaningful for you?

gold, pearl brooch

That was wonderful. The whole exhibition was exciting. I had cases of things that I did in the 40s and another case on the 50s and another on the 60s and many private collections, but the most interesting thing was that we had about 800 people come and they all had jewelry. That was a riot. It was like "oh , I haven’t seen that since---!" And it was really warm and friendly and the customers--see, it’s always the customers. They were so glad to be a part of it. It was nice.

What do you feel is the difference in approaching jewelry making as an art form rather than a craft? silver, wood earrings	I think design. My concept of design is extremely important. I think there are a lot of people who are very organic in their approaches to things, but I do like very architectural clean-cut simple things that look as if they are very easy to make. Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t, but it has to have perfection—they have to be perfect in the design itself. Everything has to be logical and clear. And if it’s held together with something it has to be decorative. Nothing is hidden. I guess I judge a lot of people by that, and yet there are a lot of people who do things that are much freer and wilder that I think are wonderful too, but that’s not my nature.
Yes, to be satisfied with your own work. That’s how it has to be.	And you can’t change it. Sometimes people will come in and ask for a look and I’ll think, well, you know that’s not my look but I’ll try something (different) but it just doesn’t work. If you are honest with yourself it just doesn’t work out that way.
I think that’s what gets us where we want to go if we are honest with ourselves.	I think from teaching and everything else it’s a real disgrace when people copy things. And it happens a lot.
I’ve always thought it interesting that even though an artist creates many different things, say paintings, sculpture, jewelry, there is a quality in each that identifies it as their work. What is the quality in a Betty Cooke design that identifies it as a Betty Cooke?	Yes, it’s interesting. It’s your song. It’s your voice or your expression. I hear all the time--someone was up from Charleston, South Carolina the other day and she has a lot of my pieces and she said, " I must tell you this, we had this wonderful party—they’re Huguenots and they had this big affair and so forth and three people walked in and they didn’t say hello, they said, ‘That’s a Betty Cooke!"

What was your reason for not going into production jewelry? gold pendant	I just never got around to it. I would like to because I have a lot of designs that we don’t make-- they are either difficult to make with the techniques we have or we can only make so much as it’s a small business. A lot of them I would like to see produced , but it would have to be somebody else doing it. I did do some work with Stieff company for a while which is a local and very honorable group of people which they wholesaled—well, they still looked like mine.
Were you happy with them?	Ah---No. I mean it wasn’t their fault. I just got the percentage and didn’t know the people. It was a good thing and I could see how it would be very exciting to do that with a catalog because a lot of people are out of Baltimore now that write or call and say please send me something (say) for my wife, she likes this, this and this. We do a lot of business that way. They know my work well enough that I can just send them a rough drawing and it works pretty well.
Your work has been described as "precision work done in freehand". How do you keep your work fresh and spontaneous after all these years?	It is. I mean some of the things are so simple and they have to be finished right and they have to be the right proportions and they’re usually a little off. I mean I’m not symmetrical I’m usually off beat.
That’s the art.	That’s the freehand part.
You use a lot of drawing in your work silver brooch	I do a lot of drawing. I like to. It’s spontaneous where as metal work is not spontaneous. It has to look spontaneous. I guess I draw a lot for myself because you just start drawing and, you know, one little dot starts the whole process going and you end up with 50 things and then you have to edit it to one that you make. But often it goes on and on and on and a lot of those things I’ll never get to make, but I’m glad that at least I drew them because they’re complete in my mind and I know exactly what they will look like-- but I’ll never have time to make them all.

What sort of adaptations have you made to your designs to suit different periods of time and fashion? Did you enjoy the challenge of designing jewelry to wear with the clothes of Geoffrey Bean in the 1970s and would you like to do that again?	Yes, I did enjoy it because I respect his skills and art form. I think he’s a terrific designer so I did enjoy that because he liked what I did. If he hadn’t liked what I did it wouldn’t have worked. He actually wanted me to design jewelry for him, but it would have been under his name and I didn’t want to do that so that was an opportunity that may or may not have worked And that was fun because it was for the fashion shows. They had to be bold pieces so I went to glass shops and rock shops and got big chunks of pieces that would show on the runway. So it was a very different thing.
silver, rough quartz necklace
So because he was an artist himself, you felt it was ok to design for him?	Well, I didn’t design for him---he used my jewelry for his fashion shows.
So you didn’t design specifically for pieces of clothes he made?	Well, I did, but he would show me the drawings and I would do something long or short or down the back, whatever it would be, but it wasn’t a production thing he did anything with. They were individual pieces. I did a whole series of belts too, which looked just like the jewelry.

I think the enumeration pieces are fascinating. Do you enjoy designing for individuals and occasions?	Oh very much so because there are very wonderful people who come to me. gold, rutilated quartz necklace
Is it an interesting challenge to start with an idea like that?	Well, you start and then you know the people. You usually know the recipient. I’m doing something now. A doctor’s wife has three occasions, May 10, June 1, and June 24 and all three pieces will go together, all will either all be precious stones, or right now this year it’s gold and ebony and they all are related in some way and it’s fascinating.
I think it’s exciting that you do that for individuals. They must be so pleased.	Oh they say I’m so glad you are here for Christmas!
What do you think was the most challenging commission that you’ve ever had?	Well I guess the longest was for Jim Rouse, which lasted 20 years. silver, wood, gold pin/pendant
What was that?	He’s the gentleman (for whom) I did the anniversary and birthday (pieces). So it started with a little one--a little 10 dollar silver one. Which is very nice and you would recognize it as mine. And then it started with her initials like a forged "R" and it went on for 20 years. That’s 40 pieces and each one had a symbol in it or something that was important to the occasion. It wasn’t obvious. You couldn’t look and say, "Oh well you are 65 years old today", but the 65 would be in there someplace. And every year twice a year we’d talk over the phone and exchange ideas like maybe she needs a necklace, or something short or something long, or maybe something colorful.
Was that your favorite also?	I don’t have a favorite. I did a lot of things for Howard Head for his wife and in this many years there have been a lot of very serious collectors.

When did you start making pieces that change—the metamorphosis part of your jewelry?	It’s part of me. It’s an obvious evolution. I did a lot of things way back in the 60s that flip over so you have an ebony side and a silver side or a gold side and a silver side. I like things that the customer can do things with. Some customers don’t like that and some do. Some of them have said, ‘ solder it all together, I’m not good at moving it." But some people enjoy that.
Perhaps you’d have to be more confident to move it. Some of them probably think that what you do is perfect and they don’t want to somehow make the piece imperfect.	Yes, there are all kinds of people. silver, wood brooch
How limiting to your art is the function jewelry must have as opposed to sculpture, which does not necessarily need to be functional?	I don’t think it’s limiting because I’ve been doing it so long. I’m surely aware of the European jewelry, which is pretty far out as far as wearing and I like that. I’ve done a few pieces which are like that, but we don’t have a clientele for that whereas I’ve done pieces that I think are nice. I’ll show you one. I guess I’m locked into—no not locked—I really care about the people I work for. I’m not making it for myself. Well sure I’m making it for myself, but I’m pretty sure I know who’s going to buy it or who’s going to wear it because I’m not going to wear it all!
Yes, There are contemporary pieces being made which are not wearable.	Which is sculpture and exciting. I have some things like that. silver bracelet
What about catches and pins and fastenings-- have you ever made something and been upset because you had to put a pin on it?	Oh I think that’s a dread! You always have to allow space for it unless you use a pin stem that you make, something like a fibula, which is another approach. It doesn’t always work on certain pieces. It should be concealed or be obvious like a fibula.
So it should be one or the other--very obvious or not.	That’s all it can be, I mean a safety pin is a wonderful thing and I’ve done variations of safety pins.

What is the difference between a piece signed with a stamped mark and one signed with an etched mark?	Sometimes I forget to stamp it! They were always done both ways. Sometimes I forget to stamp it and then to stamp it we would have to sand it and re-polish and then stamp again. And some things were constructed in a way there was no way to get the stamp in after it was made so I have to scribe it. But as far as age, there is no difference. If I had known this, I would have put years on everything. That would have been helpful, but I wasn’t thinking of anything like that.
Does it bother you when someone assigns more value to an older piece than a newer piece?	No, that’s ok. It’s a little bit awkward because everything should be stamped. silver bracelet
Has anyone every forged your pieces?	Not that I know of. There are people who copy my work and I feel that is disgusting.

How much time do you have to make jewelry now?	I do have a few people that help me. I don’t set diamonds .I have a diamond setter.
I suppose you started working with silver because it was less expensive than gold.	I started with brass and copper. silver, brass brooch
Do you use gold mostly because you can afford it now or do you like to use it?	Oh I like it. It’s beautiful and I think it’s wonderful with silver. I like the combination and we can offer things that are a good price because it has silver backs, etc. I like the different colors. I used to do the Mexican technique of married metals, the gold and silver though it used to be brass and copper and it was subtle and wonderful, but it’s expensive to do now. gold, tourmaline brooch
Your designs are timeless, however, do you feel you are a better designer now than when you started?	Oh I think I have much broader scope, sure, and I’ve done things with precious stones that I certainly didn’t do in the beginning. But it is interesting to have young people come in, really young, for their engagement rings or something and they’ll say—"Oh, this is so modern!" They are modern. It’s from that era but it’s also interesting. I’m up in age you know. People come in and say, " I want something for my mother. Do you think she’s too old for this?" And I say, "I don’t think so—it depends on her spirit. If she’s maybe 110 she still might like it!" I have some pretty aged customers that are just wonderful. They dress well, collect sculpture, paintings, jewelry. They are wonderful people!
You look wonderful in your jewelry.	Thank you. That’s all I wear. gold, pearl brooch

Have you had a design that didn’t work, that you thought was great but it just didn’t work on someone’s body or fell apart?	It doesn’t get to the point. If it doesn’t look good it doesn’t get there. I stop it! I would never polish it--go to all that trouble. Some things have fallen apart because you come up with different kinds of hooks and hinges and catches and things but we usually try them out first.
Have you ever grown tired of making jewelry, decided that you weren’t inspired and wanted to quit?	Not really, but I could do other things. I still could do some sculpture. I used to paint. I did andirons. I did bells that were sold at the Museum of Modern Art. All kinds of interesting things. And Georg Jensen had them. And it was nice the year I sold through the Museum of Modern Art. That was a very nice thing because it was in the catalog. That was interesting.
Was it hard to get into those places? Did they approach you?	No, I approached them. I just walked in.
Was that Jensen USA in New York? gold, rutilated quartz rings	New York yes, I had things at Bergdorfs, at Tiffanys, lots of places, mainly Design Research which was a very wonderful store back in the 50s, 60s, 70s because I had to like the store. I wouldn’t put it any place I didn’t like. That’s maybe the part about Stieff that I didn’t know where it was all the time. That’s kind of picky, but I wanted to know where it was and how it was displayed and if it was cared for. We have a store and I have a great respect for everything that we have, especially if it’s made by hand.

Were there any well-known sculptor-jewelers that influenced you during the 1940s when you were starting out?	I know who I respected, but I don’t know how they would influence me. I don’t know where that comes from, what you do. It’s just your inner expression and obviously you relate to people who do things that are related to you. Like I like Eames chairs with the wire legs and all that because I like wire and I like the forms that he would come up with. I thought a lot of Harry Bertoia. But, I don’t know that it influenced me. Margaret De Patta I thought was quite good and she was.
She was good. I think of all the modernist jewelers she was the most like you because her pieces were always finished. The designs were more architectural, more mathematical than say Sam Kramer.	That’s what I call organic. I could never figure him out. I told him that one time. silver, gold brooch
You did?	Well, I used to go up to the village and ask him: "What do you do that for? That’s awful! It doesn’t have any design. It doesn’t relate. But anyway he had a place.
So you knew Sam Kramer?	Well, I talked to him. He was certainly a strong influence on a lot of people.
Yes, he was seminal. Were any of the other people personal friends of yours like Steig or Margaret De Patta--Wiener?	Not really. I met Margaret De Patta because that was on my Western camping trip. silver, onyx, gold ring
Really?	I stopped in to talk to her. It was fun. We were in camping clothes and an old Ford car and went in.
Was that in San Francisco?	Yes. There was a thing in California called the Farmer’s Market. Have you ever heard of the Farmer’s Market?
No	There is a fellow (can’t think of his name) he had a jewelry booth and he had good people
Margaret De Patta sold there?	I don’t know that she did but she may have. It was very casual but it was neat and orderly and he gave everyone a space. But also out there was this store Frasers and they were up in Seattle and were mainly into furniture and fabric.

How has your husband (Bill Steinmetz) influenced your work? silver, wood, gold pin/pendant & neck ring	Oh I think we sort of go in our own keels. He’s a designer also. Entirely different, He taught design also at the Institute for 22 years. We each did. He has very good taste. We both pick (for) the store and we both work with architects, but he wouldn’t say do this or do that, but I never ask unless it’s for someone special and instead of one thing I have eight things and I’m trying to figure out which one to pick, like I have eight designs for someone and I say, "You pick." It’s very difficult so often I’ll ask different people, just for kicks, pick one. Sometimes you pay attention to it sometimes not. You sort of have to go in and think it all out you know (what she will like) because it’s usually for an important occasion. Of course, now I have a lot of jewelry that’s handed down. But it’s nice to have the granddaughter come in and say, "you know, I got this from my grandmother and it’s so modern!"
Who do you miss the most of the friends, teachers, customers that have gone before you?	Oh, I miss a lot of customers, yes.
Is the man that you designed all those pieces for 20 years still living? silver, rock crystal quartz necklace	No he died. That’s Jim Rouse he was a very prominent developer, in fact he developed all this. The city of Columbia, Harbor Place. And there was Howard Head (Head skis). He was wonderful because he was very opinionated and a designer and he would come in and say, " I want this" and I would say, "well I will only do it this way", and he would say, "no, do it this way", and I would say, " I am going to do it this way!" So we’d go back and forth. I don’t know whether he was playing with me or I was playing with him.
Is his wife still living?	His wife is still living and she has a big collection. She lives in Vail and keeps coming back
That would be an amazing exhibit of all that jewelry.	She was a very big part of the show at the Maryland Institute of Art. See, I didn’t realize all those years went by. You know, all of a sudden you are doing Vintage Jewelry!

What new directions is your work taking at present and what new projects are you working on now?	I hope by fall I will have a big collection that no one’s ever seen before because it’s getting to the point that it would be nice to isolate it and have entirely new, different approaches. It’s still going to be recognizable because you can’t get away from that—but maybe some more dimensional pieces. I have something in mind. I should have an opening. And then I still have all the old pieces that somehow, someday I’ll sell. Someday I’ll have a vintage show. So I hope for the fall that I’ll be able to do that.
That’s exciting! Is there anything specific that you will like to do in the future?	I would like to do sculpture.
Large pieces? silver ring	They would be large. Now whether I’d have them fabricated in a shop I’m not sure. I have a lot of pieces that are very sculptural, that could be reproduced on a different scale. It’s hard to define sculpture. Sculpture is dimensional but so is jewelry. I would put design in there also because a lot of sculpture is like Art Smith and a lot of it’s like Harry Bertoia. So you have all these in-betweens. Or Noguchi. I think Noguchi has been an influence on everyone, his simplicity and appreciation of nature and all those good things.
I think of you with your pebbles, etc. That’s a Japanese aesthetic.	But I had that before—I grew up with that because I worked with wood and vines and all kinds of things.
I could see the circle ring you have on as sculpture with water falling down one side. gold ring	Oh yes, that would be wonderful! One year I was sort of involved with the American Crafts Council and they wanted me to do an exhibition so I thought I would do something with just circles, everything would be circles, but you could spend years on just that, the variety .I mean slicing them, wedging them, twisting them-- all the great things you could do with circles. Excuse me for looking around but I always keep my eyes on people. I mean a dog barks at a cow. You know it’s sweet!
Life is like art isn’t it.	Yes there’s a lot here.
Even chairs, gardens, it’s all sculpture. gold, silver ring	You get obsessed with it, like I will come out here and rearrange the chairs because the tables aren’t arranged properly. It’s true; you see things like this. This is a very handsome fly that they put up over this court and the chairs should be placed in a way that allows communication--also great design. If your house looks good and your clothes look good then your jewelry should all tie in with it. Mainly the reason we have a store is that we thought it would be interesting to have a little store that we could come in a couple days a week and when we first started it was very sparse and had all the fine design that we could find on the market like Iittala glass, Marimekko clothes, and the jewelry. That gave me a reason to make the jewelry and to meet the customers and it’s been wonderful and personal. See, I like the people.
^{1Frasers was a store in San Francisco that sold contemporary crafts including modern jewelry during the 1950s.².Betty Cooke won the De Beers diamonds Today Award in 1979 and 1981}
Marbeth Schon is the owner of M. Schon Modern at www.mschon.com. She is Co-moderator of SilverForum and Co-editor of MODERN SILVER magazine . email: marbeth1@aol.com

an interview with B E T T Y C O O K E by Marbeth Schon
June 13, 2001