Lynn Murray Sien is an economist by training whose work in international finance led to a career in Taiwan. But childhood adventures that included weekend trips panning for gold while growing up in San Francisco gave her a taste for treasure hunting that’s reflected in her second career, jewelry design.
Her focus is on merging fine freshwater pearls, semiprecious gemstones, jade and vintage pieces collected throughout Asia, perfect for those seeking an elegant gift for Mother’s Day.
"As a little girl, I’d collect amethysts and other stones, like natural crystals from a novelty store. I had a fascination with gems and was attracted to things that sparkle," she said. "I think I got it from my mom.
"My mother had a passion for rocks. We were a typical middle-class, suburban family, but she had a Japanese rock garden. This was in the 1950s and ’60s, and it was unusual for a family that wasn’t Japanese.
"My dad liked to take us panning for gold. We’d head to Mount Lassen or Shasta. It was pretty rustic. People set up tents, and I was a real daddy’s girl. He taught me how to box, how to dive, how to shoot a .22 rifle at beer cans. He raised me not like a girl or boy, but as a person."
In school Sien found she had an aptitude for math and pursued a degree in economics, financing her way through the University of San Francisco and obtaining her Ph.D. at the University of California at Santa Barbara with earnings from the stock market. She started small, buying $1,000 worth of Taco Bell stock, but it gave her a taste of the investment world.
After marrying, her work took her to Taiwan, where over time she served in executive positions with the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, Merrill Lynch International, Jardine Fleming and Bank of America, where she was a vice president and senior investment officer.
But in her free time and during her travels to Tibet, Vietnam, China, Bali and Malaysia, she would scour markets for treasures including jade, pearls and other finds.
"I’d be in China for two weeks every three months and cruise neighborhoods for pearls. I started by collecting pieces of jade and taking them to a local jeweler to create the design I wanted. I had all these pieces, and when I’d go back to San Francisco, they’d be gone in three days. I was selling them off my neck to colleagues and people who stopped me on the street and asked me where I got them."
Pretty soon she was stringing pearl necklaces herself, knotting between each gem to ensure none would be lost should the string ever come apart. "I hate knotting but you have to do it," she said.
To this day, she says, "selling my pieces feels like marrying off my daughters," though her prices start at a reasonable $165 for a choker of rice pearls with sterling silver clasp and ornament, or $225 for two "Great Gatsby"-style, opera-length, open-ended strings of freshwater pearls. She calls them "Naked Pearls," suggestively reflecting her belief that "at the end of the evening, a woman needs nothing more than her pearls."
Sien was on her way home in 2000 to be closer to her aging parents and a job with Merrill Lynch in San Francisco, but during a stop in Hawaii, she decided to stay and devote her time to her original passion. She started Lynn Sien Designs and opened a downtown shop in December 2005 to market her Feng Shui Collection.
Then, a setback. In June 2006 she discovered she had breast cancer and no longer had the stamina to work. At one point the 5-foot-4 designer weighed only 90 pounds.
Although she continues treatment, Sien returned to jewelry in 2008. In the process of healing, she also took up art and music therapy, saying, "Being surrounded by beauty was all a part of the healing process. It helped alleviate the stress."
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Lynn Murray Sien designs can be found at the Honolulu Museum of Art gift shop and Robyn Buntin Gallery. Call 526-3839 or visit www.lynnsiendesigns.com.
