Category Archives: Uncategorized

giant kelp ring

Hand-carved giant kelp ring; 14K white gold

I carved this for an awesome friend of mine who is a marine biologist. She and her husband have spent a lot of time in and around the ocean (we actually met them while traveling on sailboats in Mexico) and the giant kelp forest was pretty much perfect to adapt to a ring motif. [14K white gold]

Giant kelp forest photo by Tobias Bernhard

Giant kelp forest photo by Dave Fleetham

Many more photos after the break… Continue reading

leaf-motif solitaire

18K leaf-motif solitaire

This is a modified version of my Tahitian pearl ring made to accommodate a 6.5mm blast of glittery deliciousness! I don’t often get to work with larger stones—1/2 carat to 3/4 carat sizes are by far the most popular in my experience—so this was especially exciting to make. (18K yellow gold)

Many more images to follow…
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ginkgo solitaire

Carved ginkgo leaf and diamond solitaire, 18K white gold

Finally: a new piece to show off! Carved tapered solitaire with scattered ginkgo leaves in 18K white gold. The stone is a 6mm family diamond sent to me by the client.

The ring is a slight departure from my usual fare in that it has a very clean, symmetrical outline, but with a very organic pattern of ginkgo leaves arranged across the top. I’m very happy with how it turned out.

I took a ton of photos of the ring; click through to see them all!

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holiday orders

Cast silver hollow seedpod w/hammered chain

Hello everyone! Just a quick reminder that I’ll be working up until a couple of weeks before Christmas and I’ll be shipping orders until about mid-December. Please get your orders in by the first week of November if you would like them be be shipped and received by Christmas day.

Now, let’s return to fall and pumpkins and leaves turning colors. Sheesh.

tucson gem show 2011

Cultured Sea of Cortez pearl

[Blue cultured Sea of Cortez pearl. It’s pretty amazing, not only because it is gorgeous, but because it is from the first ever cultured pearl farm in the Sea of Cortez. Previously, it had been understood that culturing the “Rainbow-lipped” oysters in the Sea was impossible. But three guys figured out how and now they have a small farm in Guaymas.]

Well, the gem show was overwhelming and hectic as usual. Two days to buy everything I think I might need for the next year is pretty nearly impossible—but I do give it my damnedest. At least I feel like I made some decent contacts.

Mostly, I bought pearls (some things do not change). The Cortez pearl above was the fanciest/rarest I’ve ever purchased. I will definitely have to visit the farm one of these days; it’s only a five-hour drive or so from my parent’s house. I’ll write more in depth about the various stones I got in a later post. For now, I’ll just post a little eye candy.

Tahitian pearls

Mmm: lovely round and semi-baroque Tahitian pearls. Gorgeous peacocky and magenta colors.

South Sea pearls

South Sea pearls from Myanmar, except for the upper right round pearl, which is a Chinese freshwater.

Chinese freshwater keshi and round pearl

I actually bought these at the last year’s show, but never got a nice photo before. Chinese freshwater rose/peach round pearl and keshi of various colors.

NV Turquoise -- all natural and unstabilized

Turquoise! I can never resist buying this stuff. These are all from Nevada I believe (maybe a couple pieces from New Mexico—will have to check) and are discovered, mined, cut, and polished by two of the nicest people. All their turquoise is non-stabilized and un-enhanced, and it is lovely stuff.

Rose-cut translucent diamonds

Rose-cut diamonds! The largest is 1.6 carats, the smallest is maybe 1/2 ct. Coolness!

* * *

And I did not watch the Grammy’s on TV but I did peruse the blogs this morning to see what everyone wore. So far my favorite jewelry piece was the Lorraine Schwartz snake bracelet: gold and platinum with large diamond slice ‘spots’ and pave white and yellow diamonds. It looks like it has ruby eyes too. (You can get a huge blown-up version here.)

Lorraine Schwartz snake bracelet

custom order deadline!!

Hi all – Just a quick reminder if you are interested in having a custom piece made: Please get your order in by the end of this week (November 5th) if you want me to be able to ship before Christmas. I’ll be going on vacation starting mid-December (back the end of January). Thank you!!

Also, I will have some more ready-to-wear pieces up here on the Etsy site soon… Necklaces, more cocktail rings, etc.

dancing I like

Ronin and I spent an evening not eating any dinner (her) and dancing to various youtube video songs. Here are some winners..

Okay. This is one of my favorite all-time finales of a movie hands down point blank period and that’s final. Maybe it was the movie, but maybe it was simply the wicked edo-period tap dance. A great number of movies could be made better with a full-cast tap number finale I believe. (It starts out pretty cool but seriously gets extra fucking awesome around 1:20.)

And if you are a major Japanese movie geek and happen to have a fetish for Kitano Takeshi, here’s a little treat: Beat Takeshi vs. Shamisen. If you like this, you should seriously follow this thread (I live in a small world evidently: I’ve NEVER seen anyone rock on a shamisen until now).

Here’s another dance number mash-up I’ve watched about a million times by now:

Two words: CYD [and] CHARISSE. My god. Can it get any better? This video makes me tear up at the end actually. It’s kind of embarrassing (and it’s not because of MJ).

Do you like Bollywood numbers? Here are a couple to watch.

My daughter (she is two) is into dance and has a special affinity for ballet (would you believe..). Sometimes on hard mornings, we watch a bit of Giselle to take the edge off The Shrill. This has to be my favorite of the Act 1 variations (of the billions out there):

I don’t know why I like the hop-hop-hop-twirl-twirl-twirl bit so much (1:00) but wee little Gelsey does it the best out of all the little ballerinas on the internets. It makes me sad that the only recorded version is in so crap of shape. Bugger.

yseult

I have some new stuff coming soon.. In the meantime, here’s a photo of a ring that I found last night while browsing the internets and which I think is about the raddest thing ever:

Kevin Coates, Yseult

God I love it. The quality of the fabric rendered in gold is awesome and I love the light patina the gold has——makes the wrap look like soft and unbleached like raw linen. The artist is Kevin Coates, and the piece is titled Yseult (Isolde of Tristan and Isolde fame). Here’s what he had to say about it,

A few years ago, I received one of those intriguing little boxes in the post which usually celebrate the remote cutting of a wedding-cake. Upon opening it, the box, bereft of nuptial crumbs, cradled instead a lonely baroque pearl, shyly featuring not one, but two, ‘nipples’. The charming accompanying note from a fellow jeweller, well-known for her wonderful work with pearls, said that she thought that I may be able to think of something to do with it. It remained fallow, but not forgotten, for some time, until the idea for this ring about Yseult (for Wagnerians: Isolde) occurred.

I bisected the orphan gem in order to liberate the two wanton nipples, and although the refractory qualities of mother-of-pearl differ from the superficial aspects of pearls themselves, I managed to find a good colour and nacre-density match from which to carve the segment of face.

The power of drapery to conceal and reveal, to reserve and to promote, is immense – here I also wanted it to stifle and restrict, to reflect Yseult’s fatal love for Tristan. That was a passion destined never to be celebrated with its wedding cake… SOURCE

I really want to start expanding my carving to include other substances rather than casting wax. Unfortunately, I fear change and much of my hesitance is due to stress over not knowing what tools to use, what to try to carve first… All dumb stuff I can probably solve in three minutes with google.

In the meantime, I’ll just continue idolizing other awesome carvers out there and dream of trying my hand someday. Soon, I think.