Paula Crevoshay has always designed around stones, and she’s never been one to shy away from a bold interplay of hues – in fact, that’s pretty much what turns her on. “As a designer and a painter, color is close to my heart,” she says. “When I look at anything, I register color before...
Joyce Scott’s beaded jewelry is often figurative, and not in a subtle way. Her figures swell beyond jewelry proportions: faces with vivid expressions, female bodies with full breasts and thighs. Captured in the confines of a necklace, her figures loom around the wearer like cartoon ghosts, demanding attention. Somehow, “necklace” isn’t the right word...
Herewith, the most important jewelry and watch auctions around the world, updated regularly as dates are announced and e-catalogs are posted.
Whether you deal in contemporary or antique, if you’re in the trade and want to find the best jewelry at the best value, sometimes you have to hop on a plane and check it out at the source. Here then, is our annual calendar of jewelry trade shows and antique fairs around the globe....
Our annual calendar, newly updated, of the best trade fairs for shopping jewelry, old and new, across the U.S. - including retail shows open to the public.
Jewelry lovers – and makers without wholesale I.D.s who want gems and beads – can now get free admission to the popular Intergem shows. Founded four decades ago, International Gem & Jewelry Shows were one of the first to sell commercial jewelry to the public, with the broad selection and prices (from $5 to...
First season of Elvis Costello’s Spectacle is now on Netflix Instant Watch – and so worth streaming. Both seasons (2008-2010) are available on DVD. I caught this show when it aired on the Sundance Channel, but these episodes are even better the second time around. Granted, Costello favors musicians from the pop and rock...
Few people have done more to push contemporary studio art jewelry forward than Helen Drutt. She was teaching craft history at art schools in Philadelphia just as the Studio Craft Movement was taking off there in the 1960s. Albert Paley was studying studio jewelry with Stanley Lechtzin at Tyler School of Art, Olaf Skoogfors...
Wearing your heart on your sleeve or someone else’s heart near yours – that’s a tradition that goes way back. If you love vintage or antique jewelry, you’ll find plenty of examples to choose from. You can also find variations on the heart theme from some of the world’s most famous jewelry designers and...
Trent Mann was painting canvases and sculpting full-time when he started his lapidary business 21 years ago. He learned production carving from Larry Woods, another Dallas-based gem artist, but has always taken a painter-and-sculptor’s approach to gem carving. Trent also designs jewelry around his gem cuts, creating highly-integrated pieces where the metalwork appears almost...
A master machinist, Lew Wackler is famous for reviving long-forgotten lapidary techniques using 19th-century machinery that he restores himself. For many years, Wackler made his living producing art objects that looked like they came from the houses of Faberge or Cartier at the turn of the century. When it comes to cutting for jewelry,...
Since ancient times, the chain has enjoyed a coveted place in jewelry. It represents eternal love and all the other good stuff about human connection: the eternity of the circle linked, without beginning or end, to other circles. Of course, chains also represent all the bad parts of human connection like oppression, imprisonment and...
Every now and then I get the ear of the ultimate expert on something jewelry-related and ply him or her with questions. I always learn something new and try to pass on the best of it to you. As I do my end-of-year wrap-up, looking over what drew people to this blog, I notice...
Sherris Cottier Shank has always been fascinated by moving water, particularly waterfalls and streams. She spent years studying and photographing water in natural settings before attempting to portray it in gemstone. No cutter alive can transform stone into water like Shank. Her most distinctive carvings are abstractions of flowing currents carved in aquamarine, sometimes...
At the end of every year, I look back over my stats for the 12 months previous and try to get a sense of what resonates with my readers – y’know, so I can give you more of that next year, if possible. My conclusion is always: Wow, what an interesting audience I have!...
Here are some of the best craft shows open to the public in the U.S. for unique, finely-crafted jewelry and, sometimes, gems, beads and materials to make your own. There are lots of wonderful craft shows across the U.S., large and small, indoors and outdoors. Strolling the booths is a great way to get...
World’s largest aquamarine carving, the 10.363-carat Dom Pedro, goes on display Thursday at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. It’s no surprise to find the carver chosen to sculpt this 14-inch obelisk was Bernd Munsteiner. Those familiar with Munsteiner’s work will recognize the distinctive reverse cuts, patterns of slashes that bring out...
Sometimes it seems like big glitzy diamonds are all you hear about at Christie’s and Sotheby’s important jewelry sales. I love the rainbow sparkles of a colored diamond as much as the next gal, but I have to say it’s a pleasure best experienced firsthand. Other than that, it’s mostly about the piles of...
Oh, just admit it. You’re watching Revenge, that Sunday night soap that takes place in the Hamptons. I started watching season one on Netflix after some women I know confessed their addiction, and even though I laughed at the melodrama, I got hooked enough to start watching the current season. I’m having as much...
Holidays are approaching, as is Black Friday. No reason to brave the madding crowds when you can make a jewelry maven happy by ordering something from the safety of your home. So what are your choices? I’ll tell you what made me happy this year. Topping my list would be the latest edition of...
When you have to produce new jewelry images every week, as many sucessful Etsy shop owners do, it helps to have nature working for you. Sheila Arguello Slick's backdrop is the tropical paradise in her own backyard.
Second in a series on DIY tips from jewelry artists for shooting your own jewelry Like Hilary Hachey, jewelry artist Lauren Schlossberg has a few pieces photographed by Hap Sakwa to use as jury slides or counter displays at craft shows. She shoots the rest herself – and takes it very seriously. Because she...
Selling jewelry online requires compelling digital images, and lots of them. If you have the time and money, you can hire a professional product photographer to shoot your jewelry - or you can do it yourself. More and more jewelry artists are learning to do just that. A few are really good at it.
It’s easier than ever to put up an ecommerce site these days, with all the self-hosting options, free templates and shopping cart applications available. But if you’re just starting out, should you stick to established marketplaces like Etsy or go it on your own? How can you stand out in this crowded online market...
Except for the help of electricity and modern chemistry, most of what jewelry artists do at the bench isn’t all that different from what goldsmiths did in ancient times – filing, soldering, sawing, forging, casting, fusing, hammering and polishing. That makes it all the more amazing when today’s metalsmiths manage to find new ways...
When you first look at the sleek ring designed by Montreal-based jewelry artist Pierre-Yves Paquette, nominated for last year’s Niche Awards, it doesn’t scream “mokume gane.” The shank has graceful, symmetrical stripes that emphasize its subtle curves but you have to look close to see that the stripes were made using the Japanese method...
You can tell at a glance that So Young Park combines several ancient techniques in her jewelry, but the designs themselves look uniquely contemporary. Each piece has layer upon layer of texture and shape. Her jewelry can call to mind lichen and moss on the bark of a tree or the ocean floor through...
No one can argue that the Internet opened up the discussion of all things jewelry-related. And Charles Lewton-Brain was a major force behind that – or, as he puts it, “the flux.” Frustration with the secrecy that surrounded jewelry-making led Lewton-Brain and Hanuman Aspler to launch the Ganoksin project 16 years ago, now the...
I love magazines. I particularly love looking at (and reading about) beautiful jewelry in magazines. I spent a good chunk of my career editing magazines and writing about jewelry for magazines, and I still love doing it. Yes, I’m all about the internet these days. But, really, is there anything that compares to turning...
As Christie’s prepares to sell the largest private collection of JAR jewels ever offered at auction – at Geneva’s Four Seasons des Bergues on May 14 – I dug up an interview I did in 2006 with François Curiel about Joel Arthur Rosenthal. Curiel, then the Geneva-based head of Christie’s jewelry department, was getting...
Ever dream of dropping everything, moving to an island and making art for the rest of your life – surrounded by exotic wildlife, crystal blue seascapes, and like-minded individuals who’ve escaped the same rat race? So many islands have become artist havens, the choices are endless. You can move to Bali and become a...
Blue diamonds continue to bring top prices at auction, a natural blue diamond being so rare and so dazzling. A ring set with a 6.01-carat cushion-cut blue diamond, flanked by pink diamonds, went for $10 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in October and an 8.01-carat vivid blue emerald-cut diamond ring is expected to sell...
The spotlight is on Elsa Schiaparelli, once again. She closed her shop in Paris almost six decades ago, yet her whimsical creations look as cutting edge as ever. Lady Gaga or Madonna could wear her shoe hat on stage and no one would bat an eye. Schiaparelli, or “Schiap,” as she was known (pronounced...
You know you’re obsessed with a show when you have to watch every behind-the-scenes special feature on the DVD. That’s where I’m at right now with The Good Wife. There’s one feature on the final disc of Season 1 called “Clothing the Characters,” that I highly recommend. It focuses on the show’s costume designer...
