About the Artists

With a business called Cleopatra’s White Nights, you know that the story behind it can’t possibly be dull. Cleopatra Workman and Kathy Madden—the women who own this fanciful name—are a unique duo. An adventurer through and through, Madden found herself in Russia in 1991. “Rather than staying in Soviet hotels or trying to navigate Moscow and St. Petersburg without language skills, I opted for a home stay program,” she explains. “The woman who met me at the airport was Cleopatra!” When they met, Madden was designing kitchens and Workman was designing women’s clothing. Madden was raised in New York and Workman was raised in the Ukraine and spent her adult life in St. Petersburg. Madden continues, “After a week in her home, the two of us were mutually and hopelessly overwhelmed with the fascination of our diverse cultural backgrounds.” The rest, you could say, is history—but what would be the fun in that?

Upon realizing how well their mindsets meshed, these two exuberant women decided to bring Baltic Amber to the United States and develop it into contemporary styling. In the early 1990s, there was very little amber to be had in the U.S. “Amber was essentially behind the Iron Curtain for 70 years,” Madden explains. “With the break up of the Soviet Union, amber could finally start to dribble out. The importing began and the demand for amber since 1992 has been so insane that the mine site in Russia shut down to stop over-excavation.” After much effort and travel—even some stretching of the truth—this pair acquired the supplies they needed to get started and their partnership was born.

“Cleopatra and I are beyond being completely full time artists,” Madden says. “In fact, I joke that we have to leave the country to get a day off.” And, even when they do leave the country—they’ve visited 14 countries and counting—they’re still doing “work,” unearthing new stones for their varied designs. These dedicated artists share the designing and creating of their jewelry. “Cleopatra makes the one-of-a-kinds. I, on the other hand, design many of the styles that become ‘production’ where we’ll make the same design in a number of gemstone or crystal choices,” Madden says. To create their magical jewelry designs, Workman and Madden work with dozens of stones and crystals. They have many people to satisfy with their non-traditional jewelry with a fan base of ladies from ages seven to 100. Their earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pendants, and brooches are made of combinations of amber, turquoise, quartz, aurora borealis fire polished crystal, black onyx, mother of pearl, and more—thousands of designs on display in their booth at every show.

“I think that 50 percent of our success is our absolute and genuine love of people, interacting with them, laughing, entertaining, and bringing out the fun part of them,” says Madden. Get the true experience of Cleopatra’s White Nights when you meet Workman and Madden in person, are enveloped in their booth, and regaled with their worldwide adventures. You will never forget the women you meet inside the “jungle” of hanging, spinning, and dripping jewelry.

—by Elizabeth Weiss