Strandbeests are giant, lightweight kinetic sculptural animals that creator Theo Jansen builds on the beach. They are propelled by the wind and move with an aliveness that is fascinating and also extremely eerie (video). I like to think that these giant creatures roam the Northern beaches until the wind and weather beats them down into a pile of twigs and bits of thread, but I assume they are eventually dis-assembled or moved to museums or something.

I’m not cool enough to make a kinetic ring that cruises the strand, but I used abstract elements of the strandbeests’ sails and architecture to create a pair of wedding bands: 14K gold with a deep cognac rose-cut translucent diamond. I think they turned out pretty cool! (more pics after the click Continue reading →

I carved this squid to match my original 8mm-wide squid. It is 4mm wide, a wee delicate little thing!

Those tiny suckers nearly did me in.

Pair of oak tree + branches bands with a carved horse. 14K white gold.

I have done white oak bands in the past, and this time, I had a specific request to design a pair of wedding bands using a bur oak motif. I had actually never heard of bur oaks, but google told me all about them. They have interestingly shaped leaves (they are also very large; dark glossy green on top, and whitish/silvery green underneath) with almost a “waist” in the middle, the end with less defined lobes compared with a classic white oak leaf. The bark is super gnarly and deeply furrowed and the twigs have a lot of interesting texture.

Some day I’m going to run across one of these trees and I’m going to know exactly what it is. It’ll be a very exciting day.

These are done in 18K white gold, and 18K green gold. I had not yet had a chance to work in green gold, and the 18K is extremely subtle. Not GREEN-green necessarily, but a very slightly greenish gold color. I really like it!

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My clients sent me photos of the scenes they had in mind for this ring: a flipping ginormous gnarly old tree in Scotland, a foresty waterfall, and a rock carving form Ireland. Then I carved them around the ring! 14K white gold.

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This is the giantest stone I’ve ever set. It’s an amazing 9+ mm diameter intense pink sapphire bezel set into 22K gold. The man’s band is also 22K. I was sweating a little setting this thing, but I prevailed and the final result was SO worth it.

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14K dragon-lily ring. This ring has a tiny carved dragon head on one side of the stone, a natural Burmese ruby, then the body winds orobouros-style around the finger. On the other side of the stone is a lily, the wearer’s favorite flower.

It was really hard to photograph this ring for some reason; I felt like I just couldn’t quite capture the depth and detail from the dragon head. And I really liked how my dragon turned out; he had a good look about him.

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Okay, it’s actually 7.85mm, but close enough; that works out to about 1.75ct. This is the low-profile solitaire adjusted to accommodate a fabulous sparkling giant of a stone (an Amora moissanite in this case). I even got to make it in my size!

The solitaire is palladium, which is a super bright white metal. I love how it looks with higher karat gold; here the narrow leaf band is 18K and the wider ridged band is 22K.

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This is the man’s band I made to match with the arabesque eternity ring. I love how the super subtle intaglio-style carving along the edge here turned out. This one is 14K palladium white gold.

Check out the reflection in the band of my photo booth: looks like I’m inside an ice cave with a nice sandy floor. And with a large black boulder near the entrance (that would be my lens). Pretty cool!

I was terribly excited to get to make wedding rings for an old friend of mine from high school + her man. She is a diver and chose a flowy kelp motif with a peachy-hued rose-cut diamond. Fun to carve! Congratulations, Kim & Jeff!

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