Meet Lindsey Joe Wang | Jewelry Designer and Studio Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lindsey Joe Wang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lindsey Joe, maybe we can start at the very start – the idea – how did you come up with the idea for your business?
I primarily found inspiration in designing and working with gold jewelry. While I always wore silver growing up, I began to fall in love with how gold enhances the vibrant colors of gemstones and how warmly it complements skin tones. With a focus on solid gold and gold-filled jewelry, I named my studio Sonora + Co after the historic gold rush town of Sonora, California.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Sonora + Co is an LA-based micro jewelry studio specializing in minimalist fine jewelry made to be lived in and loved every day. My favorite materials to work with include solid gold, diamonds, and precious gemstones, and I love crafting them into pieces that are simple enough to wear with anything, all the time.

I’ve always been a maker. Growing up, I had all sorts of hobbies, including baking, scrapbooking, and fiber art, and eventually picked up other creative interests like hand-lettering, photography, and graphic design. I was in high school when I started to explore jewelry. I looked closely at some of the accessories I already owned and realized, hey, I think I can actually make some of these myself. After buying crystal beads and wire jewelry components from my local Michaels store, I went home to raid my dad’s toolbox for wire cutters and pliers and started making my own earrings. I made so many that I decided to hand-cut some earring cards, emboss them with a heat gun and some glitter (from all my scrapbooking supplies, of course), and hang the earrings on them. They turned out so cute, I sold them for $2.50 per pair to family and friends. And that’s really how it all started!

In college, I attended Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and interviewed a local jewelry store owner as part of an assignment for my freshman year communications class. At the end of the interview, the owner asked me, “So, are you interested in making jewelry? Let’s show you the back of the studio and we can test your aptitude with a jeweler’s torch.” I was so excited. He paired me up with one of his bench jewelers, who guided me through the step-by-step process of creating a silver band from start to finish. Once I completed the ring, the owner came by, held it up with a magnifying loupe, and then said, “This is good work. Do you want a part-time job here?” And to this day, I regret not taking him up on the offer. I wasn’t confident I could balance the job with school, and I was convinced I wanted to spend my school breaks back home in LA. It’s truly one of my biggest regrets. That said, the invaluable experience I gained in his studio became the foundation of the bench jeweler skills I use today.

I started exploring my own designs with silver, gold, diamonds, and gemstones. I would venture down to the Los Angeles Jewelry District to shop for new tools and build relationships with gemstone vendors. I learned how to use a hand torch and experimented with various tools to make jewelry from my bedroom. I sold my jewelry at local craft shows with my mom and even opened an online Etsy shop. After finishing school and marrying my high school sweetheart Justin, I moved out of my parents’ home and finally bought a jeweler’s bench, which Justin helped me set up in our garage. It was in that garage that I eventually made my first engagement ring for one of my good friends from college. Even now, it’s crazy to think how everything started with making little beaded earrings on glitter-embossed cards, and now I’m handcrafting incredibly special pieces that are part of my friends’ proposal stories!

It feels important to share that as much as I enjoy handcrafting jewelry, it wasn’t always a straightforward decision to confidently pursue it as a business. I spent a lot of my early years out of college feeling the need to maintain a stable career and work up the ladder. But a friend had said something to me that always stuck in the back of my mind. It was on the first day of my first job working at Warner Bros. where I met a girl during orientation, and she told me it was her dream job to work there. We were both only in our 20s at the time, and I remember saying, “Wow, that’s so neat that you basically achieved your dream!” She replied, “Well, I have a lot of dreams! And this was always one of them.” That stuck with me for a long time, that you could simply have more than just one dream. I would often ask myself, what do I really want my dreams to be? Do I see myself staying in entertainment for my whole career? Or will I have the confidence to pursue jewelry full-time as a business one day? It was a lot to consider. I really loved working in entertainment, and I eventually landed a dream job at Walt Disney Animation Studios working on feature films. I felt like I had wholly achieved a full dream, but after some time, I started to push myself to think about what should come next.

If having a small business has taught me anything, it’s to have the courage and confidence to pursue things in life that are important to you. While still working full-time at Disney, I made a decision to start investing in myself and the things that really mattered to me. After work, I’d come home and think about what I wanted to do with my jewelry business. Justin and I worked together to develop new branding for my jewelry, design new packaging, apply to new artisan markets, reshoot product photos, build a marketing and social media plan, and so much more. We even took time off work to fly to Tennessee, where I attended New Approach School for Jewelers to build upon my bench jeweler skills and learn new stone-setting techniques. We also attended JCK in Las Vegas, one of the largest jewelry trade conventions in the world, and established new business relationships with casting houses, CAD designers, and stone vendors. After all that, we eventually also moved my garage studio into a more permanent space in our home. All of these combined efforts launched us into new opportunities and helped us regrow the business from the ground up to where we are today. It has been a strong reminder to never hesitate to bet on yourself and have confidence in your ability to chase the next dream.

This year, I’ve started shifting a lot of my work toward custom jewelry pieces. And while I want to say the most important factors of success are things like design or craftsmanship, I’ve learned that it’s actually about prioritizing your client. Why are they coming to you? What’s the story behind the piece you’re making together? Is it a special gift? A way to celebrate or symbolize an important milestone in their life? While design and craftsmanship have always been important to me, I’ve found that success really comes from your clients feeling like you understood what was important to them, and that you successfully translated that into a special piece that you made together.

Come chat with us, and let’s make something special together!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If any of my best friends wanted to visit or hang out for a week in LA, we’d basically spend the whole time eating.

I was born and raised in LA, so brunching is basically in my blood. It would literally be a requirement to start each day with brunch. We’d get buttermilk waffles and egg croissant sandwiches from Cos and Pi in South Pasadena, or salami sandwiches and pastries from Proof Bakery in Atwater Village. For days that we’d crave Asian food in the morning, we would probably make a trip to Lunasia Dim Sum House in Alhambra for pineapple bbq pork buns and jumbo shu mai, or we’d grab Taiwanese breakfast staples like pork sung rice rolls and green onion pancake with egg from Yi Mei in San Gabriel.

For dinner time, we’d definitely do a night of soup pork dumplings at Prince Dumpling in Rosemead, and we’d spend another night at Baekjeong in Temple City for the best Korean bbq you can get without having to drive to Ktown. For a fancier night out, we’d do Tam O’Shanter in Atwater Village for prime rib and chocolate soufflé, or Majordomo at the edge of Chinatown for their specialty short rib plate and pork shoulder bo saam (reserve the short rib a day early and make sure to go with a big group – the portions are huge and definitely meant for sharing!). We’d also do a night with pasta or pizza, with Settebello’s Pizzeria in Pasadena being a top pick for Neapolitan pizza, and then also Hippo in Highland Park for duck ragu and bucatini with guanciale. Oh and definitely try their griddled butter cake for dessert!

For post-dinner hangouts, we’d get boba from our current favorite spots which include The TEA and HEYTEA in Monterey Park (Justin and I are currently obsessed with the mango coconut drinks from both shops). If we were still somehow hungry and wanted snacks, we would go to Everson Royce Bar in Arts District for the world’s flakiest buttermilk biscuits and cinnamon honey butter, and we’d probably split a couple of their burgers as well (they use ground chuck and ribeye – literal perfection).

So yep, we’d basically eat, drink, and probably nap. It would be the best week ever.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The first shoutout goes to my husband and partner in everything, Justin. I would not be here without his unconditional support and confidence in me and our goals. I’m so grateful for every single way he’s helped us build what we have today.

The second shoutout goes to my family. My mom, Melinda, would come with me to every single craft show when I first started making jewelry. Meanwhile, my dad, Joseph, would frequently find me “borrowing” things from his garage, from his pliers and tools to his folding tables, canopies, dollies, and usually his truck, too. And then of course, there’s my brother Brandon, who now helps resin print models of my jewelry for me multiple times per week, and sometimes multiple times per day.

I would not be where I am today without them. Thank you to my amazing family!

Website: https://sonoraandco.com

Instagram: @sonora.co

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonoraandco

Image Credits
David Leong, Justin Wang