Today we’d like to introduce you to Carol A. Karas, GG BA.
Carol A. Karas GG BA, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
In the early 70’s my husband, Ed, and I both decided to leave our jobs and visit Europe. My brother was a fight pilot stationed just outside of Madrid; when we got tired of camping we would go back to stay with him and his wife. Nine months later we came home with grand plans of opening up a gallery featuring the crafts of our artesian friends and imports from Morroco. My husband had always dabbled in the arts and when I bought some handmade silver jewelry for the shop he became fascinated with the idea of metal smithing. I was going to CSUN at the time which was known for its jewelry making department. I kept coming home with books on jewelry making and pretty soon we had a little work shop of our own at home. We started making and repairing jewelry, we even learned to cut stones. We were completely self-taught. We also learned rather quickly that importing stuff from Africa was not for the meek of heart and we gave that up rather quickly. We always have to explain where the name Maroc (French for Morroco) Cellar came from. We also phased out the other gallery items. We realized we needed to focus.
Since my husband had no formal training nobody told him what could or could not be done and he was soon finding ways to fix things that other shops wouldn’t touch. It took a while to be really self-sustaining, but we have loyal customers that 44 years later like to tease us about the early years when we were hippees.
I have always been drawn to history and antiques and after I completed by GG I went on to study antique jewelry. I love sleuthing out the origins of an old pieces and we often have the pleasure of offering some fine antique jewelry in our consignment section.
My other love is dogs and there usually is a dog at the store, along with pretzels and organic grapefruit from our tree when in season.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
In our early years, before the store was self-sustaining, I was working during the day at Calamigos ranch and going to school at night. Ed was working the store at day and working at Calamigos on the weekend. At the store he was chief cook and bottle washer doing the books, taking care of inventory, the customers, and doing the repairs and making stock. It was too much. He became very ill; his eyes were paralyzed and he had heavy duty flu symptoms. We also had no health insurance. Luckily, we had a customer who referred us to a doctor who recognized what he had as an unnamed autoimmune disease. He managed to save my husband’s eyesight and restore him to health, but we always had to watch out for flare ups. We found that stress seemed to be the trigger. We learned to go to bed early, eat better and walk away from stressful situations, which is not very easy when you are in business for yourself. We also found a way to afford health insurance, an accountant and another jeweler.
Please tell us about Maroc Cellar Jewelers.
We have made all kinds of things that I am very proud of, like replicating the Titanic necklace for a museum. But what I think I am most proud of is making people happy, even if it is a little silver bracelet made from pebbles lovingly collected from special beaches or fixing grandmother’s old costume necklace. We treat everything with the same respect. We are ethical, well informed and competent. We try to do what is best for the customer. No one is perfect, and sometimes we make mistakes, but we try not to.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I wish we had been better prepared for being businessmen. We tend to do things more with our hearts than our heads.
Contact Info:
- Address: 14106 Ventura Blvd. #109
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 - Phone: 818-995-7066 or 818-995-0263
- Email: [email protected]
