Owners' unique talents collide to make gems into jewelry at Common Ground Jewelry in Greenport
Owners Alexa Suess, left, and Susan Pridham of Common Ground Jewelry in Greenport. Credit: Common Ground Jewelry
At Common Ground Jewelry in Greenport, shop co-owners Alexa Suess and Susan Pridham are accustomed to being called rock stars. Thanks to their unique talents and skills for turning gems into rings, necklaces, pins, bracelets and other wearable handmade works of art, it goes with the territory at their inviting Front Street store.
“We specialize in unusual stones, recycled materials and alternatives to traditional fine jewelry,” says Suess, a gemologist and goldsmith based in Greenport. “We also carry some collectors’ quality crystal and mineral specimens. We approach everything we do with a sense of wonder and curiosity.”
The pair became business partners in 2017, when Pridham was considering a change from Blue Ruth, a solo enterprise she ran in town for seven years.
The name Common Ground connotes their shared sense of wonder and curiosity about the natural world, according to Pridham, a jewelry maker and designer with over three decades of experience who lives in Ridge. “We both love stones,” she says. “We both love nature.” In mid-January, they close the shop for a month to seek out materials at the Tucson Gem Show in Arizona.
“I’m 61. There’s a 33-year difference between us. I’m very bohemian. Alexa’s work is very fine,” says Pridham, who often works in silver.
Suess concurs, saying, “Susan and I are very much opposite people, and we joke about it all the time. But our styles go really well together.”
A peek at display cases reveals strikingly bold and delicate pieces in a wide range of prices. Small onyx towers cost around $28, Pridham’s sterling tarot charm necklaces sell for $88, while a 14-karat diamond ring by Suess featured in Vogue recently sold for $5,400. On rare occasions, commissions are accepted.
Customers at the shop tend to share something in common.
“When people come to us it usually has to do with a change in their lives — a new job, a promotion, a doctorate,” says Suess. “The ability to be with people during those sort of important times of their life is really special for us.”
Common Ground Jewelry is located at 29 Front St., in Greenport. Winter store hours are Thursday through Monday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; commongroundjewelry.com.
