By Melissa Lynch ’95
ADVANCING CLARK
from her collection to benefit the Isaiah Alonso Foundation, which helps families dealing with childhood cancer. Lorenzo, who still lives in Central Massachusetts, credits Clark with giving her the skills that have gotten her where she is. When she graduated in 1991, the job market was very much like today’s — uncertain. That’s when the value of her Clark years became apparent. “An education that allows you to be a chameleon is super important,” she says. Her Clark tools helped her to navigate the rocky economy and achieve success in the nonprofit sector as a community liaison for the Boys and Girls Club, and then as a well-respected human resources professional with experience in multiple industries, leading up to her role at OnePIN. Today, she is back working part time at OnePIN, while devoting the rest of her time to creating her jewelry line. “I loved Clark so much,” Lorenzo says. “I’m not a person who went there knowing what I wanted to do. I’m very open to everything; I don’t have an Excel spreadsheet of what my life has got to look like. I’ve always been open to exploring the universe, and that’s brought me to where I am now. “Clark was a really great jumping-off point because there were so many great people from all over the world — and the faculty looks to expand your brain, not just pigeonhole you. It was a really good fit for me.”
61 clark alumni magazine
Christine Lorenzo ’91 wants to give you the evil eye. Or, to be more specific, she’d like to give you an evil-eye bead — something that, when worn as jewelry, becomes a “lucky eye” and wards off negative spirits. The motto of her company, SariBlue (sariblue.com), proclaims: “There’s nothing evil about it.” Lorenzo founded the company just last June. She had been laid off from her job and was going through a divorce, so it was a rough time. Her daughters were the ones who encouraged her. “What it took was a six- and seven-year-old to say, ‘Mom, you deserve to do what you want to do. You’re really creative, we want you to open your own jewelry company,’” she says. “Every time I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes — that my two little muses told me to do it.” Lorenzo’s appreciation for the origins behind the evil eye developed more than six years ago when she was director of human resources/operations for OnePIN Inc. of Westboro, Mass., a company that develops technology for mobile phone SIM cards. The technology is not used in North America, so Lorenzo often traveled to Turkey for her work and was smitten with the nation’s art, history, food and people. During her travels, Lorenzo realized that she so closely identified with the Turkish culture because it is very similar to that of Italy; she was raised in a strong Italian family with a focus on “food, family, history, craft and love.” She particularly connected to the concept of the evil eye, a notion also prevalent in Italian culture (as the Mallochio), and the Nazar Boncuk — the evil-eye bead. In Turkey, Lorenzo marveled at the oldworld techniques the bead makers used, and still travels to the country to buy their beads for her jewelry. “You would not believe the process they use,” she says. “It’s very old fashioned, and it’s really eco-friendly. They sit around a fire, barefoot; they use pine — which produces low emissions as it burns — and the tools that they use have been around for hundreds of years. They get recycled glass, and every single bead is on this metal spit that they hand roll over the fire. It’s a generational, beautiful art.” SariBlue is a member of The Artisan Group, an international organization that promotes its members and alerts them to extraordinary opportunities. Recently, Lorenzo handcrafted 100 pendants that were given to celebrities at the Golden Globe Awards — her website includes photos of actor Jeremy Irons and Clark’s own “Bachelorette” Ali Fedotowsky ’06 with her pieces — and bracelets for members of the press covering the Academy Awards. She’s currently crafting 130 pairs of earrings to be gifted at June’s MTV Movie Awards, and has created customized pieces for celebrities like Josh Sussman, Zooey Deschanel, Jessica Alba and Hillary Duff. While getting her work into the hands of Hollywood’s well-known is an amazing feat, Lorenzo also makes a point of contributing to those in need. She donates pieces to auctions and sells SariBlue T-shirts and items
spring 2012
Christine Lorenzo ’91 has a bead on her career