{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Road to Your Name Podcast","title":"Road To Your Name - Season 8, Episode 8: Visiting with Jesse Brant from Firefighter to Goldsmith/Silversmith, Co-Owner of Sapling & Flint","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2562,"description":"Road to Your Name\nSeason 8, Episode 8\nGuest:  Jesse Brant of Sapling & Flint — From Firefighter to Goldsmith/Slilversmith\nThis episode was recorded in December 2025\nEPISODE DESCRIPTION\nIn this episode, Lisa visits with Jesse Brant, co-owner of Sapling & Flint, a jewelry business rooted in Six Nations of the Grand River. Jesse — known professionally as Yonenyà:kenht, meaning \"transparent stone,\" after the Herkimer diamonds that grow in the Mohawk Valley — is a trained goldsmith who specializes in Herkimer diamond and wampum jewelry, working alongside her twin sister and business partner Dakota Brant.\nJesse's path here wasn't a straight line. She wasn't an art student in high school. She competed at Miss Indian World as a teenager. She spent seventeen years as a firefighter, including five as a platoon captain, all while building Sapling & Flint on the side until the business outgrew the side. What started as a couple of sisters selling their work at powwow tables in 2015 has become a jewelry manufacturer with a storefront in Ohswé:ken's Iroquois Village Plaza and customers ordering from around the world.\nThis conversation covers the craft itself — wampum cutting, gold and sterling silver work, lab-grown diamonds and the ethics of sourcing — as well as Jesse's hopes for building a silversmithing community at Six Nations, and a goal she's not shy about naming out loud: a future collaboration with a major luxury house.\nWHAT WE TALK ABOUT\n- How Jesse, a self-described non-artist who took science and math in high school, ended up enrolling in the jewelry arts and design program at George Brown College — at her late mother Terry Lynn Brant's suggestion\n- Competing in Miss Indian World in Albuquerque as a teenager, representing Six Nations, and how the experience pushed her toward beadwork for the first time\n- Getting into George Brown's competitive program with only a handful of self-made beadwork pieces to show in her interview\n- Studying Kanien'kéha at Onkwawenna...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/EMAPSU_o9vetcBfJJ4OU41woZtyCGFgI7d9nIXpjEOY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9iMGM3/MjAxOGE0Njg1ZWVj/MWUxZTFkMzllNmI3/ZWQzZi5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}