{"podcast":{"title":"The Materialist : A Podcast from At Present","slug":"the-materialist-a-podcast-from-at-present-7020202","podcast_index_feed_id":7020202,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/3032602.rss","website_url":"https://atpresent.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/3032602/b23cc577c853a27e2e85620781b32946.jpg","author":"At Present","episode_count":39,"summary":"An exploration of material culture with At Present Founder Marc Bridge. Marc is a Materialist. He loves things -- the things artists make, the things we sell, the things we make part of our our lives. But he was conflicted. Why do things matter? Why do creative people dedicate their lives to crafting them? What does it mean to obsess about what we buy, wear, and put in our homes. Are we destroying our planet, our children, and ourselves through this obsession? The Materialist Podcast is an exploration of this and so much more. Join us for conversations with the world's best jewelry designers, stylists, influencers, admirers, environmentalists, academics, and a bunch of just interesting people. atpresent.substack.com","last_synced_at":"2026-06-18T10:21:57.470188+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-materialist-a-podcast-from-at-present-7020202"},"episode":{"title":"The Materialist : Monica Stephenson","slug":"the-materialist-monica-stephenson","published_at":"2025-12-30T22:20:43+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-materialist-a-podcast-from-at-present-7020202/the-materialist-monica-stephenson","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-materialist-a-podcast-from-at-present-7020202","url":"https://atpresent.substack.com/p/the-materialist-monica-stephenson","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/183002464/a54e129d27bd832540d42330a58a26bf.mp3","summary":"Marc Bridge and Monica Stephenson, Anza Gems Worldwide Headquarters, Seattle, WA Monica Stephenson is the kind of guest who makes you see a familiar object—one you might already love—like it’s brand new. In this episode of The Materialist , we sit together in her Seattle office overlooking Lake Union and the skyline, and we follow a thread that runs from the jewelry counter in a Midwest college town all the way to artisanal gem mines in East Africa—and then back again, into the hands of the designers and collectors who ultimately give these stones a second life. What unfolds is not just Monica’s career story (though it’s a fantastic one), but a bigger argument about what jewelry can do when it’s treated as both beauty and infrastructure: an object that sparks desire on the surface, and—if you care to go deeper—a vehicle for livelihoods, dignity, and long-term economic power. A retailer’s education: why the “floor” matters Monica’s origin story is refreshingly unromantic in the best way: she starts in retail in the early 1990s, selling jewelry while studying art history and fine art at the University of Iowa. That experience, she argues, isn’t a detour—it’s the foundation. Retail trains you to listen, to understand what customers actually respond to, and to translate a piece of jewelry into a reason someone chooses to bring it into their life. It’s also where she first feels the pull of what she calls the “small sculpture” quality of jewelry—the idea that a piece can be materially precious, artistically rigorous, and emotionally immediate all at once. She remembers being captivated by the intention and artistry of emerging designers, a shift away from mass-manufactured sameness toward jewelry with a point of view. You flip a bracelet over, she says, and it’s as beautifu…","meta_description":"Marc Bridge and Monica Stephenson, Anza Gems Worldwide Headquarters, Seattle, WA Monica Stephenson is the kind of guest who makes you see a familiar objec…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3463,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-materialist-a-podcast-from-at-present-7020202/episodes/the-materialist-monica-stephenson/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-materialist-a-podcast-from-at-present-7020202/the-materialist-monica-stephenson.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}