Although she look like an old pro, Dusty has only been in the antique business for three months. A protege of San Francisco dealer Jon Favors, prior to entering the show circuit, the Los Angeles girl worked with drug addicts as a ball cradler.”I did sober companion work at a rehab center,” explained Dusty, John Favor’s assistant and fledgling jewelry maker. “I was basically a paid conscience.” She talked to celebrities about sobriety and what it’s like to be newly sober,” said the 30-year-old who sports a red-black hairdo that is cross between 1980s punk, Bob Marley dreadlocks and 1950s pin-up. Her duties also included reminding her patients to take their medications, logging their prescriptions, as well as being a round-the-clock watchdog. Although the money was really good, she admitted, it was very difficult being with recovering drug addicts 24 hours a day. ”I had to be with them all of the time because it was too easy for them to get high if I was away,” she said. She decided one day that she was going to do something that made her happy, and creating jewelry, headdresses and other ornaments from found items has become her new passion. She has decided to follow her artistic calling. ”I wandered into his Oakland warehouse open houses one day,” she said. She had just moved up to San Francisco to be with her boyfriend and decided to make a brand new start. They have been dating for about a year now and she is still very happy. ”He is the first guy I’ve dated that has supported me entirely without any ulterior motives,” she said. She was introduced to the world of “fakes” and “two facedness” when she modeled earlier in her life. ”Everybody always wanted something from you,” she said. Dusty had an exciting childhood. She was raised by her mother, a successful studio musician who was a lead guitarist. for Neil Diamond. This meant a lot of late nights when she was a young girl. “I fell asleep in a lot of drum cases,” she recalled. Dusty and her boyfriend were struggling with their career paths when she first moved to San Francisco a few months ago and the stuff she saw in Favor’s warehouse inspired her to start her own exotic jewelry making business. She often uses flashy, vintage items from foreign countries. In addition, he decided on the spot to hire her. Aside from helping him “do a thousand things a minute,” she offered several of her own creations in Favor’s space at the Art Deco & Modernism Show.
