Humbble BBeginnings
Wrapping out 25 BBeautiful Years of Bing Bang
As some of you know, this whole JEWELED LIFE story started with a humble little idea called Bing Bang.
Spoiler alert: even if you do know BB, you may want to read this simply because it’s the last postcard from Bing Bang’s 25 year adventure. I felt it was worthy of the tall tale so….here goes.
Rewind the proverbial mixtape and let me paint the scene:
She’s dressed in head-to-toe black. It’s San Francisco in the 90’s. Maybe she is listening to The Swans still, or by then it could be The Cranes, something Post-Goth (is that a thing?!). Anyway, she’s definitely giving punk-meets-goth-meets-rosie-the-riveter. Photos to prove it pasted herein.
Basically, I moved to San Francisco to let my inner weirdo bloom. It was glorious. It was the 90s. It was some of the most beautiful years of my life. And I had very little plan, just to manifest my destiny ;)
I am going to skip over the save-for-the-memoir bits so we stay on task. But by maybe ‘95, I was working at a tattoo shop called MOM’s–-learning about the human condition, honing my hustle as a deeply shy person, and, well, selling tattoos (not doing them). I was working my way through college via a few courses per semester and a 40 hr/4 days a wk job that changed me for the better and added a lot of written history to my skin.
This salt water taffy crafting of a plan to get my BFA took about 7 years. Coincidentally the time it takes for total cellular turnover in a human body, so I was legitimately a new person at the end. The secret win was that this tandem work-and-grow-up approach turned out to be the greatest gift for a young artist–-the gift of TIME. Time to find myself, to explore different modes of creating, to get lost then found then lost again.
During that span, I worked every weekend (except during Burning Man!). I got a lot of tattoos, kissed some frogs, drove—and parallel parked—a giant 1968 pick up truck with a “four on the floor” shifter all over SF. Also, I found an unimpeachably amazing chosen family, learned to weld, cast bronze, fire Raku, take photos, play pool and…. make jewelry. Albeit a very rudimentary set of bench skills, more like a welder and blacksmith, but this was a start in making ornament. And though it was rough & tumble, I called it jewelry.
To color in this polaroid picture a little further:
During this time I showed sculptures in a few exhibits in CA, NY and in one around-the-world show of Shoebox sized art, as well as in the famed SF Open Studios, mine being in the industrial wild west, later upgraded to the super chic Dogpatch. It was here, in a warehouse on 24th & Tennessee, where I actually live-worked in the sunset shadow of Potrero Hill, that my jewelry career was born. It started slow. I discovered these amazing steel and bronze cast offs in my blacksmithing teacher’s metal shop that really intrigued me. They were essentially the confetti from a machine that punched round and square holes in giant metal plates.
I loved the idea of usurping (I mean foretelling anyone?!) the standard model of setting a stone in precious metal. So I started making rings and pendants with these beautiful metal chunks, and blessed be the cosmos- I started to sell them too! I went to the stores I knew from working in the Haight, and they loved the pieces and the name. They sold them, and they lovingly encouraged me to make more.
And so, over time, in my wee art studio, I began accidentally building a brand.
No business plan, no loan, no mentor, no prior experience. And I decided to name it BING BANG. Why you ask? Well:
1- because we F*^%ing love 4 letter words and, like tattoos, they fit on your knuckles.
2- it was my two little hands working away with hammer, anvil, saw, file, and torch. Binging and Banging my way to a new life.
Fast forward to NYC in the Oughts. I didn’t know a single thing about building a brand, merchandising a collection or, lol, running a company. I was blessed blessed blessed all along the way with people who have helped me to shiny success and in my darkest hours. We will focus here on the shiny part today ;)
To name just a few- Heidi Bivens pulled jewelry for so many amazing shoots and taught me what a stylist does and how to make a loan form. Aya Kanai taught me what an editor does and placed BB in NYLON so many times it was unreal. Andrea Linett ran multiple features on me in Lucky Magazine which made my mom SO PROUD. Shelly Zander was my angel, modeled for trade in so many look books, wore BB all over town, and introduced me to THE Marc Jacobs, which turned into my first and most amazing collaboration ever. Stella Ishii, LEGEND, explained how wholesale worked and took a chance on me by adding the first ever jewelry line to THE NEWS showroom. I was in the company of a up-and-coming Philip Lim, Alex Wang, Band of Outsiders and many other amazing brands. She got me into Barneys, United Arrows, Bon Marche, Liberty and so many stores around the world.
And this is only a slight sum-up of the incredible people who helped me create the brand and make the jewelry along the way--- Karie Higgins and Bethany Cocco, LOVE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. I meant it when I said “humbling” and it is no small feat to say what’s next. It brings tears to my eyes to reminiscence on how many amazing people I met through this funny idea I cheekily named with four letter words.
I mean there is no greater feeling of “I have arrived” than being a scrappy kid from Albuquerque (mostly) seeing their fledgling project’s name on the wall of the coolest department store in NYC, on diamond jewelry sold at Marc Jacobs stores, at TARGET and in knowing it’s being sold and bought and worn by fans in Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, London, Montreal... NEW YORK CITY. It was a dream come true, or more, it was a dream I never knew could even exist for me.
From Mom’s to Making it BING BANG BIG…Okay so I am now in actual tears.
Alas, time to bid adieu. This is the last of this baby brand, that could be my child; that has brought me a whole family. And I just literally met a BB fan in CDMX who styled with this jewelry for years. Imagine knowing this day is coming when I told a stranger what I do for work and she shouts “OMG I LOVE BING BANG”. I fell into total awe that she even knew Bing Bang. As I told her, for 25 years, I got up and pushed this little boulder up the hill every day to an unreachable top. It could be a never-ending story. But with what is to come, I know that now is the best time to make space. To close this door so that others may open.
My whole heart to everyone who’s been part of this story and endeared BB into their lives (including you, Colin!).
Will post more on the socials, on ASJ and here as I go through the archives and drop tears for the near and dears.
XxA
💔🥹🫶🏼
I didn’t know you were on Substack! Me too! Yay! I’ll be in Taos July 💋✨