Dora Fourcade’s Pacific Perles farm on the atoll of Aratika makes use of the wide and deep lagoon. The airstrip and two navigable passes allow for easy access. Photo courtesy Dora Fourcade.
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Dora Fourcade’s Pacific Perles farm on the atoll of Aratika makes use of the wide and deep lagoon. The airstrip and two navigable passes allow for easy access. Photo courtesy Dora Fourcade.

Palisadian Dora Fourcade, owner of Pacific Perles and Dora Fourcade Designs, wearing some of the Tahitian pearls she loves. Photo courtesy Dora Fourcade.
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Palisadian Dora Fourcade, owner of Pacific Perles and Dora Fourcade Designs, wearing some of the Tahitian pearls she loves. Photo courtesy Dora Fourcade.

The unadorned door of Suite E in a small, stark, garden office building in Santa Monica gives nothing away. Neighboring offices house several construction companies, a small nonprofit and a property management group. But Suite E, nearly as modest inside as out, holds great beauty. Tahitian pearls, in an astounding range of hues, and in varying sizes and shapes, are tucked away here, held for the U.S. retail customers of Dora Fourcade Designs.
Dora Fourcade is a surprise in her own right. A petite, pretty, dark-haired woman, dressed for business and exuding an air of competent professionalism, she is in fact a farmer. A native-born Tahitian, she owns and manages one of the largest pearl farms Aratika, an atoll about 300 miles northeast of Tahiti, though she lives in Pacific Palisades. Subject to many of the same threats as any farmer—inclement weather, parasites, and global pricing pressure—she seems to take the risks in stride. “It’s labor intensive and you never know,” Fourcade says as she talks about production rates.
She’s managed the farm on her own since 1997, when she bought out the shares owned by her brother, Jean Pierre. Taking over as sole owner of an island farm 4,000 miles away should have been transition enough for Fourcade, who moved from Mandeville Canyon with her two young children. But she also had to prove herself competent to skeptics who were particularly doubtful about a woman running the show.
“I am not the only woman who has owned a pearl farm, but I am one of only maybe two women who has run a large pearl farm,” Fourcade says. “The challenge was that I had come back to Tahiti after living in the States and they didn’t think I knew enough to do it.”
Fourcade made the transition work, and the farm today produces roughly half a million pearls each year, for sale primarily to the Japanese and Hong Kong markets. Comfortable in her role as producer, she now also creates custom jewelry for retail clients in Los Angeles.
“In a way, design is more creative, so it’s more enjoyable. But the farming is great because the islands are so beautiful and it’s always a joy to go there, just because of the beauty of the site and the people,” she says. “It’s kind of nice to have that duality—to follow the pearl through production and then to put it in a setting.”
Now she commutes by what she calls her “shuttle,” traveling back to Tahiti nearly every month. “It’s an easy flight,” she claims of the eight-hour trip, but acknowledges that, once there, her schedule is mostly “work, work, work,” laughing with her assistant about the fact that she rarely returns with a tan.
It’s a bit easier to manage now that her children are grown. Fourcade’s son graduated from college this year and is back in Los Angeles and moving into his own place. Her daughter is a senior in high school. They lobbied their mother to return to the U.S. in 2001. Fourcade describes them as “total Angelenos” and imagines that neither has much interest in taking on the business in Tahiti.
Tahitian pearls differ from other pearls by color. They are often called “black pearls,” though Fourcade objects to this designation, as none of the pearls are actually solid black.
“Tahitian pearls can be as light as white, white being a rare color. They can be all tones of gold . . . green . . . pink to a rich aubergine. I’ve seen browns. I’ve seen bright coppers. And, of course, all the tones of just pure grey . . . to almost black,” Fourcade says.
It is this unique coloring, in all its variations, that distinguishes Tahitian pearls from the more familiar white pearls, first cultured in Japan. This colorfully beautiful outcome requires years of commitment, and careful attention must be paid to both environment and process.
The average pearl takes four or five years to produce. The oysters are gathered at an early stage in protective nets and settled in the lagoon to grow for three or four years before they can be grafted to produce a pearl. Grafting is a delicate surgical process of inserting a small nucleus, manufactured from the shell of a freshwater mussel, for the pearl to grow around. In nature, pearls can form at random around a small bit of coral or shell fragment, but they are not often round in shape and thousands of oysters would have to be opened in the hope of finding one pearl.
After grafting, the pearl needs another 18 months to two years to develop to its final form. At any time, disease or weather can destroy some or all of the oysters.
“The oysters are very, very sensitive to any accident [of nature],” Fourcade says. Even an unexpected rapid rise in temperature can create an infection and cause the oysters to begin to die. They also require clean water to survive, so that storms or pollutants are disruptive. Even when well tended, only 50 percent of the oysters, on average, will create a pearl. And, despite best efforts, the ultimate result is largely up to nature.
“We cannot control the oyster,” Fourcade says. “It decides whether it wants to produce a perfect pearl with incredible luster or whether it wants to produce something that looks like a rock under the ground.”
If an oyster produces a good pearl, it will be grafted again. The species of oyster Fourcade farms, the pinctada margaritifera, can produce three or four pearls in its lifetime, unlike smaller oysters which rarely survive more than one “nucleation.” The larger size means that the oyster’s flesh is not entirely edible, but the center of the oyster is delicious, Fourcade says.
Once harvested and cleaned, Fourcade’s pearls are ready for the primary market in Asia or for use in a final design in the U.S. secondary market.
“I use my pearls as they are,” says Fourcade, distinguishing between other countries or other types of pearls that may be bleached or otherwise processed in an attempt to improve appearance.
The quality of the pearl depends on luster (high is better than low); the smoothness of the surface (judged on a scale of “clean” to “heavily blemished”); shape (round is the preference for pearls, though only 10 percent of the harvest is round); and size (bigger is typically better, as with diamonds). Color preference is in the eye of the beholder, Fourcade says.
As a member of the board of the trade association Perles de Tahiti, Fourcade is an advocate for Tahitian pearls and available to speak to groups, large or small, about the pearls which have provided the adventure of a lifetime for her.
She will talk more about “how pearls are born” when the Palisades AARP chapter hosts her at the Palisades Woman’s Club on October 8 at 2 p.m. Her presentation will be open to the public and free of charge. Fourcade is eager to share her passion for pearls.
“I have spent countless hours—eight to 10 hours a day—sorting the shapes and the colors, and I have never tired of it because there is always a pearl that will fascinate me because it is such an unusual shape or an amazing color.”

In Search of Kennedy filmmaker Chuck Workman at his Marquez Knolls home. In the background is the Academy Award he won for his 1986 live-action short, Precious Images.
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In Search of Kennedy filmmaker Chuck Workman at his Marquez Knolls home. In the background is the Academy Award he won for his 1986 live-action short, Precious Images.
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer

Documentary filmmaker Chuck Workman is looking ahead at November’s election by looking back. His latest, In Search of Kennedy, contrasts the life, legacy and myth of President John F. Kennedy with the McCain-Obama showdown currently unfolding.
On Saturday, September 27, the Pacific Palisades-based Friends of Film (FOF) will welcome the Academy Award-winning Palisadian at an outdoor screening of Workman’s JFK documentary.
Proceeds will benefit FOF’s Sixth Annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival this spring.
In Search of Kennedy, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival in June, takes an objective look back at our 35th president and features dozens of commentators including Tom Hayden, Michael Moore, Garrison Keillor, Chris Matthews, Arianna Huffington, the late Norman Mailer, and Senators Joseph Biden, Edward Kennedy and Chris Dodd. Alec Baldwin also contributes to the film.
Workman, 54, has lived in Marquez Knolls for nearly 15 years. He and his wife, Barbara, moved their family to the Palisades a month before fires ravaged his former Topanga Canyon community.
“I originally rented a house in the Palisades,” Workman recalls. “We thought we’d be here for a year.”
The Workmans’ daughter, Gennifer Gardiner, lives in town on Swarthmore, where she raises their grandchildren, Damian and Kyra. Their son, Jeremy, works as a filmmaker in New York.
In 1987, Workman received an Oscar for his live-action short, Precious Images, a film that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Directors Guild of America with “close to 500 clips of famous movies in seven minutes,” says Workman, who has also received 10 Emmy nominations working for the Oscars. He crafts the Academy Awards telecast’s film montages.
“Gil Cates is a great producer and he lets me do my own thing,” Workman says. “Yes, it’s a lot of pressure and politics, but it’s kind of fun.” So much fun, he’s done it for 20 years.
Workman is no stranger to ‘60s icons. He made the theatrical documentaries Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol in 1990, and 1999’s The Source, about Jack Kerouac. Workman also consulted on the historical footage used in Emilio Estevez’s 2006 Robert F. Kennedy biopic, Bobby.
So why did Workman pick such a shopworn subject as JFK?
“When I was asked to do it [by his producing partner Steve Kurn],” he says. “My initial reaction was, ‘What do we need another Kennedy film for? Who cares about Kennedy?’ As it turns out, everyone cares, especially in Europe, Africa and South America.
“‘Can we use him now?’—that’s kind of the mantra of the film.”
Although he concedes that “the mythic importance of Kennedy is larger than his achievements,” Workman insists that Kennedy was not the James Dean of U.S. presidents, but the “Abraham Lincoln of modern presidents . . . he’s in the top five among the general public. Both parties talk about him. A lot of the Republicans say that today Kennedy would be a Republican.”
Workman, who is currently exploring distribution options, explains that the days of seeing documentaries at your local Laemmle are numbered. Due to an over-saturation of docs, “Film festivals are getting less important than even five years ago.”
For 2009, Workman is readying a look at avant-garde film pioneer Jonas Mekas. He has little desire to make Hollywood features, eschewing formula for freedom.
“In Hollywood, you have to make it for a mass audience, you have to make it a certain way. With documentary filmmaking, you can do anything you want.”
To attend Saturday’s screening, contact Bob Sharka at 310-459-7073. Tickets: $50. The cocktail hour begins at 6:30 p.m.; screening at 8:15 p.m. Visit FriendsOfFilm.com
For information on Workman, visit www.calliopefilms.com and www.InSearchofKennedy.com.

Marty Horowitz, Grenades, mixed media with gold leaf (2006).
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Marty Horowitz, Grenades, mixed media with gold leaf (2006).

The 18th Street Arts Center concludes the 2008 exhibition series, “The Future of Nations,” with “War As A Way of Life,” curated by Pacific Palisades resident Clayton Campbell. The exhibition opens on Saturday.
Featuring a group of international and California visual artists, the exhibit examines the phenomenon of how people who are exposed to long-term effects of war are transformed. Using photography, video, mixed media, and painting, the artists look at how war, whether abroad, in American neighborhoods or within families, is affecting future generations’ perceptions of themselves and their communities.
“War can be in Iraq, it can be in our own city, or it can be in our homes,” Campbell says. “Whether it is a misbegotten foreign adventure run by incompetent politicians and corrupt industrialists; a neighborhood terrified of the gangs that control it; or our own psyches polluted with media images of slashers, serial killers, and pornographic action stars, violence is undeniably and unpredictably transformative.”
“‘War As A Way of Life’ is being presented during an intense election year,” Campbell continues, “for the future of the nation is not clear, and an understanding of what is happening to our collective psyche is critical to real transformative change, both positive and proactive.”
The exhibition includes works by Susan Crile, Binh Danh, Barry Frydlender, Catherine Opie and others. “Threshold of the Innocents and Martyred,” an installation in the project room by 18th Street 2008 Artist Fellow Amitis Motevalli will also be displayed.
Campbell is an artist and arts organizer who has been with 18th Street Art Center since 1995, and is the organization’s artistic director. He specializes in international cultural exchange and artist residencies and is the artist residency advisor. In 2002, the French government awarded him the distinction of Chevalier, Order of Arts and Letters for his international work in the field of arts and culture.

All ages are invited to participate in the 14th annual Run for the Nuns on Sunday, September 28, following the 11 a.m. mass at Corpus Christi Church.
This family-friendly 2k walk/run/ scooter/bike ride starts and finishes at Corpus Christi School.
A picnic-style lunch will be served, along with the popular sundae bar, face painting, photo booth, and kids’ raffle. Attendees can try to sink the school’s student council members at the dunk tank for $1 per ball. Proceeds will benefit the Sisters of St. Louis Retirement Fund.
Sign-ups are available before or on the day of the event for $15 per person or $50 per family of four or more members.
For sign-ups, contact Jennifer Malaret at (310) 454-0430.