About Us

Most ideas are born from necessity.  Many form out of mistakes.  Some come mysteriously in the middle of the night by way of dreams.  Our idea for a line of jewelry came from a broken watch. 

One day in 1984, while my siblings and I were visiting at my brother Steven’s house, someone picked up a circular green chip that was lying around, and asked “What’s this?”
    
“It’s from my watch” Steve replied. “It stopped working so I took it apart.” 

“It’s really quite beautiful.  It would make a nice earring” I said, as I held it up to my ear.  “Too bad you don’t have another broken watch.” 
    
The chip was passed around and everyone inspected the gold lines and tiny attachments, agreeing that it was too beautiful to be stuck inside a watch—especially one that didn’t work.  Within minutes we were looking for other electronic devices to open up and examine.  What we discovered was that hidden inside almost everything we took apart was an interesting combination of color, line, pattern, texture, and form.  Because none of us were electronically savvy, we were genuinely amazed at what we saw inside the things we used every day—the calculator, microwave, computer, digital clock, telephone, and even the washing machine had aesthetically attractive components inside.
     
Perhaps this enlightening investigation would have remained just a fun memory in our family’s history, but Steve kept thinking about the viability of jewelry made from electronic components. Having studied business in college, and having set a personal goal of owning his own business by the age of 25, he believed that the idea was worth pursuing. He persuaded me, an artist who liked to dabble in multi-media projects of all kinds, to go on electronic excursion to see just what was out there.
    
Steve and I started by visiting electronic retail stores in Seattle, and became convinced that the variety of computer and electronic parts we saw could indeed be used to make beautiful, unique jewelry.  Next, a trip to Silicon Valley, the hub of computer component manufacturing, turned up some amazing, intricately patterned ceramic wafers, many which were studded with dazzling micro-chips.  Available as rejects (saved by the manufacturers for their precious metals) we purchased all we could of the components we found most striking. This began the family business we named Transistor Sister selling computer geek earrings, tie pins, tie clasps, lapel pins and cuff links.
      
I began designing, using everything from resistors to microchips, while Steven set about creating a marketing strategy. Another brother, Mark, figured out how to get the chips looking their best—experimenting with how to get a good shine on the metal and how to keep it glowing. Within months we had our first retail show at the annual Mercer Island Art Festival in Mercer Island, WA, and, to our delight, the public loved our jewelry!  Not only were people excited about purchasing our jewelry to wear themselves, they were glad to have found in our product line the perfect computer gift for the computer geek in their life (we all know one).       
From there we steadily increased our designs and grew into a flourishing retail and wholesale business assisted by several excellent employees. We traveled all over the country selling our jewelry at street fairs, art festivals, environmental and recycling events, and at many jewelry and electronic trade shows. One of Steve and Mark’s favorite annual sales events was the HAM radio convention in Dayton, Ohio, because the “Hamsters,” as we affectionately referred to them, were a knowledgeable, fun crowd of customers, who we also bought some of our jewelry parts from.
   
There were many highlights during the 12 years that we made our electronic and computer jewelry, but for me, having our jewelry displayed at MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art in New York) was one of our most satisfying achievements. Never mind that it was in the Gift Store, and not an exhibit—I felt, as an artist, that I had made it big!  Another memorable recognition that our jewelry received was “Best of Show” at the 1998 Madison Art Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. The award was truly an honor, and we displayed the purple ribbon proudly in our shop, but because Steve and Mark and I grew up in Wisconsin, the award held a special place in our hearts.
    
After 12 years of successful jewelry making, we decided to disband our business to pursue other interests.  We packed up all our components and equipment and stored them away.      

But now, because of the interest many of our previous customers continue to have in our jewelry, Steve, Mark and I have decided to open up the shop again and create Transistor Sister jewelry on a limited basis.  So, even though our electronic watches today might have a different, more evolved circuitry inside them, as do most computer and electronic devices, we are still offering some of our best, original designs, which we now view as pieces of history rather than parts from the cutting edge technology that existed back in 1984 when we started our business.

Whether buying our computer jewelry as a geek gift, ordering it for yourself to wear, or just viewing our jewelry on this website, we hope you enjoy our creations with a spirit of wonder at the beauty to be found in the inner world of computers and electronics.

-- Susan Grzadzielewski