Auntie’s A’ama

Looking around the dance floor in my living room the other day, I realized that a certain extremely positive regression to middle school had occurred in the sense that all of my most beloved friends were wearing the exact same Sharon Leton earrings in different color ways at the same social event and we were all really stoked about it. Well, take a look at them! Wouldn’t you be very very pleased to see a whole herd of these beauties swaying and shimmying to the beat?

We of the shop are most honored to be able to carry the beaded work of Nile’s auntie Sharon Leton. Sharon was a leather worker in San Francisco when she vacationed to Kauai in 1976 and stayed for good. For the past thirty years, she has been combing the beaches with a pair of tweezers for the Puka, Ni’ihau, and Sunrise Shells that, when painstakingly strung with vintage Czech glass beads, pearls, leather, and treasures from around the world, transcend the art of exquisite OG auntie adornment. Each piece is one of a kind, with shells that that absorb and enhance the mana of their wearer.

This past Christmastime, Nile, my mom, and I got to visit Sharon at her home/studio in Haena. Here you see Nile sporting an insane Seven Sunrise necklace that Sharon made for her tenth birthday with the matched shells her Uncle Bill found on the beach whilst she fans the flame of that special new jewelry acquisition glint in her eye. Also you see the dragon’s ransom of recent delights. And in the shop, should come visit us, you might just see a few of these pairs of earrings and beaded leather bangles that have come all this way to the mainland.

Sharon’s work table displays her genius means of keeping her array of tiny pink-to-beige Ni’ihau shells, glass seed beads, and precious stones tidy and at the ready—tea coasters! Of course!

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