When you walk into Goldsmiths Gallery, you might recognize the woman running the store.
That’s because Paula Heath has worked in the downtown jewelry shop since 2005, when it was Mark Knipe Goldsmiths.
Mark Knipe, a staple in downtown Concord since opening the shop in 1993, decided to (mostly) call it a career at the end of last year at the age of 73. Heath, a jewelry and fashion buff with decades of experience, decided to keep the jewel-selling tradition alive in the same spot Concord residents have become familiar with. The result is Goldsmiths Gallery, which had a grand opening ceremony last Wednesday.
“I’m very, very excited,” Heath said a few hours before the ribbon-cutting.
Heath spent 31 years in the fashion design industry in New York before moving back to her native Concord in 2005, when she took up a job with Knipe, her high school jewelry-making teacher.
Despite all the years working in the fashion and jewelry industries, this is the first business Heath has owned, and she’s optimistic about the endeavor.
“It was very well-established, in this location since 1993,” she said of the Two Capital Plaza storefront on North Main Street. Since people already know that spot as a jewelry shop, it will be an easy transition for both Heath and customers. Plus, having worked there for more than a decade, Heath has established plenty of relationships with customers who have become regulars.
The store will look familiar to those who have been to Mark Knipe Goldsmith, though Heath has done some rearranging of display cases and removed one case.
“It took them a lot of years to fill those cases,” she said of Knipe’s collection.
As for Heath’s collection, it’s almost all handmade work by artists from all over the world, including locally.
In fact, Knipe himself will maintain a presence at the new store in the form of a contributing artist. Although Knipe is out of the store-running game, he’s still as fine a craftsman as anyone when it comes to jewelry, and he’ll continue to make custom pieces that will be sold at the shop. He even had his own display case when we dropped by last week.
While Knipe’s work may be familiar to many customers new and old, there are also pieces at Goldsmiths Gallery that are new and different from anything sold there before.
“We have some new artists – I have some international artists, which is new,” Heath said.
And the shop isn’t just for shopping. Goldsmiths Gallery also offers all of the services you’d expect from a jewelry shop, and then some.
If you want a custom piece – something you saw in a dream or sketched on a napkin late at night – the team can turn that into reality. Heath can draw up a design of your vision, then turn that over to someone like Eric Janelle or Alexandra Rahmann, who will take the materials and morph them into that design.
Or, if you snag a prong of your ring or break the clasp on your earring (happens to us all the time), they can fix that for you. You can even get a free cleaning or check, in which they check your piece for any signs of damage or wear.
At the end of the day, things are pretty much the same for Heath – she’s still designing and selling jewelry in the same downtown shop – only it’s a little trickier.
“I have all the paperwork to do now,” she said. “Now I have to pay all the bills, too, so I do that after hours.”
For more info, go to facebook.com/GoldsmithsGalleryNH or call 224-2920.
