Tourist Trap, It Ain’t: Fair Prices for Extraordinary Products
Dockside Jewelers Features Artful Pieces that Leave Wallet Woes Behind
By Chaiel Schaffel
The birds are chirping, the sails are flying, and the sun is blazing by 9:00 AM. Summer has arrived, and the Island is again open for business. As the Vineyard has a primarily tourism- based economy, this means that you, the reader, have a gigantic target on your head in the shape of a dollar bill. Through gimmicks and sales, deals and finagling, everyone is trying to sell you something desperately. Well, except for at least one person. Steven Davidian, of Dockside Jewelers in Oak Bluffs. Steve, we like to call him.
Luckily, Steve isn’t a salesman. He doesn’t need to look at his products and drum up a fake megawatt grin or put on a paper-thin veneer of mock enthusiasm for items he doesn’t really care about. He is a man driven by authentic fire, by a genuine passion for a great many things, his artwork chief among them. Steve’s jewelry is his life, and anyone can tell, based on the absurd hours he keeps in his dockside shop (10:00 AM-10:00 PM, daily). A loud talking, honest 
New Englander from the South End of New Bedford, Steve is about as real as you’re going to get. Listening into the language he uses, besides the dropped “Ahs” typical of this region, his everyday speech is peppered with adjectives like “honest,” “fair,” and “reasonable,” lending themselves to paint an image of how the man behind the counter conducts himself in business. As I spoke to him, a customer walked in and asked to have a few items polished. He promptly buffed them to a shine and handed them back, free of charge, as Steve doesn’t charge for harmless favors. This is much unlike other businesses that are consistently trying to make a buck with mounds of red tape and dozens of fees for everything under the sun. “Why not?” he argues. I asked him how he started in the jewelry business.
“Oh Christ,” was his tactful reply. “It was thirty-two years ago.”
He got his start in the business selling scrimshaw on the New Bedford-Martha’s Vineyard ferry, and all throughout college to make ends meet. But when he needed a way to save his best designs, carving ivory all day came up short. Before that, he worked tech for various rock bands, touring the country with big name acts in his youth. Now, Steve operates out of a large dockside storefront, the interior of which he built himself. When asked what about his work is unique, Steve leveled with me: “I try to find different takes on popular jewelry and give it a Vineyard feel, without getting ridiculously commercial, I don’t want to just stick a Vineyard name on something that you can find anywhere. But I want it to be as much a nice piece of jewelry as I want it to be Vineyard related.” His M&M necklaces, inspired 
by Paloma Picasso’s bean necklace, are molded directly from an M&M candy coated in heat resistant resin, and then engraved with a map of Martha’s Vineyard. The artwork was among the first to use the innovative technique for molding jewelry around an unstable core, and the result is a sparkling gem of original homespun design. Another difficult creation is his Concentric Circle Earrings, which feature several interlocking metal rings hoisting a Vineyard cutout at their center. Steve describes it as one of his most challenging pieces to make, taking days of work to complete.
While he does make jewelry for the masses, Steve’s opinions on the matter were quite pronounced. “If I make something I like and they don’t like it, then hey, I gave it my best shot, but if I start pandering to some commercial trend, and it still doesn’t sell, then I get really angry.” In reality, his business model is simple, and anything but conniving: “I just want people to walk in and enjoy their time, I don’t want to aggressively sell them on something.”
Behind the cases in his shop, brilliantly sparkling pieces set the walls ablaze with reflections. Every imaginable color and shape shimmers behind the glass, lit by custom lighting of Davidian’s own design. His days setting up stages 
taught him the importance of how light portrays a subject, and he’s designed his shop to fit. From opals and diamonds, to stainless steel and fishing line, the range of materials and prices in the large waterside storefront is staggering. The only constant is the ocean view peeking in from the dock side windows. And boy, does Steve love that view.
“I love being on the Vineyard. If I was up on Circuit Ave, I would probably make more money but it wouldn’t be that much different from main street anywhere. I just love the Vineyard, I grew up on the water in New Bedford, and I love it on the water here.” His love for the surroundings of this place is clear, judging from the care he funnels into his Vineyard designs. Smiling, he said; “It’s not really work for me. I love talking to people, and I love what I do.”
Dockside Jewelers is located inside the Dockside Mall on Circuit Avenue Extension, or from its other entrance on the wharf at Oak Bluffs Harbor.
