Homewood grown, South American refined
Kate Morris used to say that she started making jewelry at age 13, but her mom would tell people otherwise. In elementary school, she would craft American flag pins and beaded bracelets to sell at the park while her older brother, Jake Collins, now a teacher and coach at Homewood Middle School, played baseball.
As a high schooler at Homewood, Morris created pieces for herself at first, but when her parents told her she could go on a mission trip to Bolivia only if she helped raise money, she started selling them as well. Likewise, as a student at Samford University, jewelry sales continued to fund her travels in South America as she ventured to Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru and Columbia. While visiting these countries, she would ask jewelry makers she met on the streets about their techniques and even learned to solder (or join metals) from one of them. While in these countries, she also became acquainted with their native gems in their raw state, including one of her favorites, amazonite.
Years later, each piece in her jewelry line has a Spanish name, either from a woman’s first name or a geographical marker.
Through 2012 Morris sold her designs on Etsy, but in 2014, after a break to finish grad school and plan her wedding, she unveiled her new name, new branding and a new look. Kate Collins designs were more earthy and organic, while Kate Morris designs are more contemporary chic, she said. She now releases a spring/summer line in March and a fall/winter line in September. Her most recent line features 27 necklaces of varying lengths, 12 bracelets, six pairs of earrings and three body jewel designs. Pieces run from $25 to $160.
Morris is a Spanish teacher and Pure Barre instructor, but somehow she finds about 30 hours a week to devote to her jewelry business. She crafts her designs from a room in her Edgewood house that both serves as her studio and her husband’s fishing equipment room.
Her materials are sourced from vendors throughout the country. Her agate and druzi gems come from a vendor in Tuscon, Arizona, and she often encases these and similar stones with an edge of gold, which she gets from a vendor in New York.
Morris finds inspiration in fashion magazines but also in architecture and interiors. Often she’ll walk around At Home on 18th Street to get her creative juices flowing. In addition to a bachelor’s in Spanish, Morris has a degree in interior design from Samford, after all, which she says comes in handy because she uses design software she learned in school to create her metal work.
Because Morris spends most of her time teaching, making jewelry or teaching Pure Barre, she doesn’t always wear her designs, with the exception of stud earrings. Usually, she said, she ends up selling her own pieces. It’s hard to say no when people ask to buy what she is wearing, but when she gets requests to purchase jewelry pieces she got while traveling in South America, the answer is a resounding “no.”
Morris sells her jewelry in Shoefly in Homewood as well as a selection of other boutiques in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida and twice a month at Pepper Place Market in downtown Birmingham. To learn more or purchase Morris’ designs, visit katemorrisjewelry.com.