Handmade With Heart Made to Be Loved
I'm Jessica Cortes — designer, artist, and founder of Mod North & Co.
Before this business existed, I spent 14 years as an interior designer, with a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design from Mount Mary University and over a decade designing commercial spaces across corporate, healthcare, education, and government sectors. In 2012, I stepped back from that career to raise our first child — we now have five.
In 2016, while restoring a vintage piece for our home, I came across a stunning aquamarine agate slice and turned it into a clock. I listed it on Etsy almost on a whim. It landed on Etsy's front page and sold within hours. That was the moment I knew I'd found something worth building.
What followed was nearly a decade of growth: Mod North & Co. helped start both the agate clock and agate garland categories on Etsy, well before either became a recognizable style of home decor. From 2019 to 2023, our agate clocks were carried as a vendor line through Anthropologie. Along the way, we've handcrafted and shipped over 10,000 pieces from our studio here in Wisconsin.
As tastes and technology shifted — wearables largely replaced the desk clock — we've shifted too. Today, our focus is on agate wall hangings and garlands: large-format, gallery-worthy pieces built the way I'd specify them for a design client, with real attention to proportion, palette, and how a piece actually lives in a room.
Every piece is handmade with genuine, ethically sourced Brazilian agate, leather, silk, and wood. No two are ever quite alike, and that's by design — we're not mass production, and we never will be.
If you're working on a specific space — whether it's a single wall or a full client project — I love hearing about it. Reach out any time at jessica [!at] modnorth.com, and I'll do my best to help you find or design the right piece.
– Jessica Cortés, Founder & Designer
Handmade with love. Inspired by nature. Crafted for your home.
