Vintage Interview: Uptown Modern, Austin, TX

Uptown Modern is an antique furniture store specializing in mid-century home goods and unique jewelry.  The store is bright and airy, decorated by theme, each visual set up has a suggestive room display.  I was quite enchanted by the jewelry display case at the register and inspected each shelf for…too long.  Long enough that an unexpected interview with owner Jean Heath was conducted.  (She’s a busy lady and I thought I would be missing her on my trip to Austin).

INTERVIEW:  UPTOWN MODERN                                                                      5111 Burnet Rd. Austin, TX  78756             (512) 452-1200                               Hours:  Mon-Sat 11-6  Sun 12-5                   UptownModernAustin.com  Facebook:  Uptown Modern                         Twitter:  @Uptown_Modern            Pinterest:  Uptown Modern  

RNR:  This store wasn’t here when I lived down the way 8 years ago.  How long have you been here?

UM:  We started the store seven years ago and in a different location.  It was four blocks down the street.  The owner of the building sold it and they’re now building a huge apartment complex.  So we had one, maybe two months to find a new place.  It was VERY traumatic.  This place was in horrible shape and I did a ton of work on this building.  

RNR:  Earlier when I was drooling over the jewelry collection you mentioned that’s where you got started in the business?

UM:  Yes, I started 30 years ago, the funny thing was, I never liked antiques…hated them.  I never liked jewelry, ever.  I didn’t even like wearing it.  My oldest son is very active and energetic and we were on a trip to San Antonio and needed to get out of the car for a while so, we stopped in Gruene.  I went into this antique store to get a Coke and there was this woman there working on a display and it was all Mariam Haskell jewelry.  Now, I’m not real girly-girly or anything but, I just took one look at that and was like “This is the most gorgeous stuff I ever saw”.  I looked at it as art.  She educated me about Mariam Haskell and about costume jewelry back in the day.  So, I bought the pieces and started reading the Antique Trader and going to antique shows and there were a couple of jewelry dealers that would come through and I would just be waiting with bated breath.  So, I still looked at it as art, not as any type of embellishment or anything like that.

Examples of Mariam Haskell pieces

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RNR:  What did you do with these pieces when you took them home?

UM:  I would just look at it.  I would just lay it out on my dresser and (gasps) think, this is gorgeous.  So, I started to get into the costume jewelry as a collector and then….well, its expensive and I thought, I can’t buy anymore jewelry, I can’t afford it!  

RNR:  What were you doing for money at the time?

UM:  At the time I was working part-time at UT.  I worked at the union as a student development specialist.  We would have a lot of art shows in the 70s and students would bring in their pottery and art to sell.  It was very unusual back then.  I also started a thing called Informal Class Program, which was non-credit classes.  I hired people to teach belly dancing and things like car repair, always a lot of arts related type things.  After I had my child I worked part-time for the first couple of years and then I went back to work, I had a line of women’s clothing.

RNR:  Really?  Okay.  (Is there anything this woman doesn’t do?)  So, did you sew the clothes?

UM:  No, I had seamstresses who worked for me.  I bought a bunch of sewing machines for them and I designed the clothes.  I also had a pattern maker. RNR:  What made you want to design clothing?

UM:  I don’t know, that’s just the kinda thing that was coming… I like to design very hippie-ish prairie clothing with lots of embellishments.  Kinda like a lot of the stuff that’s going on today but, this was in the late 70s.  I just like them as art.

RNR:  Who did you sell these clothes to?  You’re students?

UM:  No, I was out of the union by then.  I was doing my own stuff, like painted shirts.  Silk screens.

RNR:  So, you’ve always had an artistic knack for things.

UM:  I guess, I don’t see myself as artistic but, yeah, I like it and I have fun.  So that’s what I was doing and then I got into the jewelry and started selling it on the side.  Then I started selling through the Antique Trader.  I developed kind of a network of dealers I knew across the country.  One of them is still my really good friend.  She’s a dealer in Wisconsin.  I know a lot of people like that actually, it’s like a big extended family.

RNR:  Do you get involved in any markets?

UM:  I was invited to be at  Uncommon Objects early on. But my first store was in San Antonio at a place called Antiques on Houston, it’s not there anymore.  Then I was in Austin Antique Mall and had a case or two of jewelry and smalls. Then I got a booth in Antique Gallery and had a big space and had to fill it up so, I started buying furniture.  I was also in City Wide Garage Sale…I was in like six places at one time.  And then once my son turned 16 and I was able to spend more time on the shop I opened up Uptown Modern down the street and here we are today.