Not everyone gets to turn their passion into a career. Even fewer get to fuse two passions to make that career both a reality and spiritually fulfilling. But Jen Glick isn’t everyone.

She sees magic in what others find ordinary, especially when it comes to cats.

And it all began with a fallen whisker.

“Our little boy Hatchet was kind of chubby and his whiskers were really, really long,” Glick recounts. “I found one when he was about two years old and I thought ‘my gosh, these are beautiful.’ Every time I found one, I put it in a jar. But I didn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t want anyone to think I was nuts.”

For several months, she collected the fallen whiskers from Hatchet and his sister Molly. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, Glick, a Fine Arts graduate who has been making her own jewelry since she was young, thought to put the whiskers into a necklace.

That first cat whisker jewelry piece was a simple antique brass bezel with the whiskers laid out in a random pattern on the natural metal background.  It may have been simple, but it was eye-catching. Her friends saw the necklace and wanted something similar.

Her friends told their friends, who told their friends. Everyone wanted one.

That was 11 years ago.

Volana Kote

Glick grew up with cats, learning early to appreciate their independence and their quirky attitudes. Today she has four of her own.

They, and her jewelry making are her passions in life (and the beach, she loves the beach).

When more people began asking for cat whisker necklaces, bracelets or rings, she knew she’d hit on something special.

By 2017, Glick was considering going full time. She just needed a name to operate under.

Unsurprisingly, she found inspiration in one of her cats, an all-black rescue with a tiny crescent moon her belly — her moon kitten, as she likes to say.

She settled on Volana Kote. Volana means “moon” in Malagasy (the language of Madagascar). Kote means “kitten” in Czech.

Armed with the new name, Glick attended the 2018 Catsbury Park Cat Convention in Asbury Park, New Jersey. And for the first time, she put her cat whisker jewelry on display for the world to see.

She hasn’t looked back since.

Memorial Jewelry

A few months after the convention, a client reached out to Glick with a request she’d never anticipated.

“When I first stared doing this, I had no intention of doing memorial jewelry because I was making the jewelry out of my cat’s whiskers that were still living and I had never lost a pet, so it had never crossed my mind at all.”

She might never have even realized she was doing it if it wasn’t for her one cardinal rule. No cut whiskers. (Cutting a cat’s whiskers is painful for cats and disrupts their spatial comprehension.) Glick will only work with naturally fallen whiskers. After so much time working with her own cats’ whiskers, she can tell the difference between a naturally fallen whisker and a cut whisker.

That necessitated a phone call from the client who’d had to put her cat down because the cat was sick. She called to ask Glick if cut whiskers would be okay in that case. Glick’s response was to start crying, but she pulled herself together and said yes.

Today, memorial jewelry made with whiskers (cut whiskers from cats that have passed are permitted), fur, and ashes accounts for at least 50% of her business.

Though Glick never anticipated the memorial side of her business, she wouldn’t change it.

“It’s become really fulfilling because I’m helping people get through one of the hardest things of their lives… It’s devastating so it’s really nice to be able to help people, even if it’s the tiniest bit.”

Cat Whisker Jewelry Options

The Volana Kote line of cat whisker jewelry includes necklaces, rings, bracelets, cuff links, earrings, hairpins, money clips, and tie clips. And they’re all gorgeous. You can find them all on Etsy.

Glick tries to personalize every piece.

“I usually ask people to send me a photo of their cat. I like to know whose whiskers I’m working with. It makes it more special for me.”

Pretty much everything she offers is because someone requested it. She’s shaped whiskers into the initial of a beloved cat, matched the background stone to a cat’s eye color, even turned toenail sheaths into beautiful ocean waves.

But no matter how many new requests she gets, she never tires of working with whiskers.

“I think they’re magical,” Glick says. “Whenever I find one, to this day, I get so excited. It’s like finding a four-leaf clover.”

Whisker Tributes by Volana Kote

Crazy Cat People

Whiskers may indeed be Glick’s four-leaf clover; after all, they led her to her people.

“The only reason this [Volana Kote] is here is because I went to a cat convention and realized holy cow, there are a ton of people just as crazy as I am about cats. These are my people.

I am one lucky lady.”

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