Brooch pendant of mokume gane, Maube pearl and diamond by Fullerton-Bahr

John Bahr and Lynda Fullerton like to learn new things. Having designed jewelry together since 1990, they had the basics down a while ago. But they get bored easily so they developed an annual tradition. As each year draws to a close, they put their heads together and come up with something both want to learn.

For creative spark, they invite artist friends over for a Christmas gathering at their home in San Gregorio, CA, and ask them to bring something they’re working on. “Everybody is exploring new stuff,” Fullerton says. “You get inspiration from your friends.”

Once they agree on the next challenge, the couple sets about mastering it. Over the years they’ve tried roller printing, press forming, stone cutting, colored patinas and enameling.

At the end of 1999, they decided to try mokume gane. They had no idea what they were getting into. In retrospect, that was probably a blessing.

Mokume gane (pronounced “mukoomay gahnay”), the Japanese technique of stacking and fusing different metals, is far more complicated than it appears. As many as 20-40 layers are fused into a solid sheet in a kiln, then cooled, hammered to a quarter-inch sheet, and sliced. The process is repeated to get the desired patterns, which range from stripes to a swirling wood grain, depending how you slice it. (Cutting straight down produces stripes; diagonal cuts produce a wood grain; and drilling holes creates circular patterns.)

The trickiest step, they discovered, is the firing. Every metal has a different melting temperature and the Fullerton-Bahrs use several, including green and white gold, palladium and shakudo (a gold-copper alloy).

“When you use as many different metals as we do, the problem is that a eutectic alloy can form,” Fullerton says. “Two metals come together and form a new alloy that may melt at a lower temperature than either of the two original metals. We’ve ruined a few pieces that way.”

A year after they took it on, they had made considerable progress and mokume gane had become an integral part of their jewelry, but they were a long way from mastery. So they decided to put the annual tradition on hold for a while. They had found, for them, the ultimate challenge and an endless source of fascination.

“We will probably study this to our graves,” Fullerton says, laughing. “We got addicted to it. We’re still developing the technique, and probably always will be.”

To see more of their mokume gane creations, visit the Fullerton-Bahr Jewelry site.

                          

Man Ray’s most famous pieces look a little challenging to wear, but they are superb pieces of craftsmanship – thanks to Gem Montibello, the Italian firm who produced them – and more functional than they appear. His Optic-Topic gold mask, for example, would appear to completely blind the wearer, but if you look closely, you can see a network of tiny drilled holes forming a spiral pattern.

Optic-Topic gold mask designed by Man Ray, 1974, 79/100 edition, produced by Gem Montebello (Diane Venet collection)

“You see through them as well as with glasses. It’s interesting,” says Diane Venet, who owns this gold mask, one of 100 produced, along with most of the jewelry on display. “Man Ray was always breaking his glasses and he loved to drive fast. So he had a discussion the Giancarlo Montebello about glasses and finally, after a few months, they came up with this.”

Pendantif-Pendant earrings of 18kt red gold by Man Ray, 1970, edition of 12, Gem Montebello

I’m not sure if she was implying he wore this while driving fast. If so, he was crazier than we thought. Man Ray was born in Philadelphia in 1890, which means by the time he designed the mask, he was 84. He died in Paris, his adopted home, two years later.

The spiral gold earrings (right) recall the spiral shapes in Man Ray’s work during the early years of the Dada movement and the title, Pendantif-Pendant, reflects his obsession with puns and alliteration. But most people refer to these as “the lampshade earrings,” because the design stemmed from a lampshade Man Ray designed in 1919.

The earrings shown have a conventional post but the originals are 5 1/2 inches long and hung from a wide curve of wire. They weren’t designed to hang directly from the lobe but to loop over the top of the ear. Clever. Man Ray’s idea – or Giancarlo Montebello’s?

Montebello produced this gold and platinum ring, signed and dated by Man Ray, in 1970, around the same time as the earrings. Venet proudly owns one of an edition of twelve.

LeTrou ring of 24kt gold and platinum by Man Ray, edition of 12, Gem Montebello (Diane Venet collection)

Man Ray had a couple things going for him that Picasso and Ernst lacked: an extensive background in fashion photography and a genuine interest in creating unique, high-quality, wearable sculpture. He also had Montibello producing his jewelry.

Giancarlo Montebello set up his workshop of highly-skilled craftsmen in Milan, in 1967, inviting a select group of internationally-known artists to contribute designs. Montebello’s team collaborated closely with the artists. Not all artists are household names, at least not in the U.S., but their jewelry definitely stands out above the rest.

You can find other results of these collaborations at the MAD exhibit, including some gorgeous geometric gold pieces designed by sculptor Pol Bury and several whimsical figurative pieces designed by sculptor/painter Niki de Saint-Phalle and executed in colorful enamel by Montebello.

Montebello is still producing artist-made jewelry, evidenced in the exhibit by a lethal-looking spiky gold ring designed by German artist Günther Uecker dated 2011. It was inspired by his Chair with Nails sculpture. (Ouch.)

Montebello, now in his nineties, was planning to attend the exhibition in NYC when I spoke to Venet earlier this month. “I want him to see all this,” she said, waving a hand around the exhibition. “He worked so hard.”

Related posts:

Alexander Calder’s jewelry: going mobile

Salvador Dalí: bejeweled surrealism

Jewelry by famous artists

Jewelry by Picasso: the secret stash of Dora Maar

                          

Much of it is a delight and a surprise. Some is forgettable. Some is the kind of jewelry made by conceptual artists who don’t respect the medium as an end in itself. As Audrey Friedman, owner of Primavera Gallery and collector of jewelry by Dalí and Calder, once told me: “A lot of artists have the idea that because they’re artists, because they’re sculptors, they should do things that are weird, difficult to wear, outsized. I say, if you’re going to make jewelry, make jewelry that can be worn and that doesn’t make the wearer look absurd.”

In other words, some of the jewelry is a failure of the form-follows-function rule. The Frank Stella pieces in the exhibit are an interesting case – a solid effort, recognizably Stella, visually provocative. But do they work as jewelry?

Necklace prototype of gold painted on metal by Frank Stella, 2008 (Diane Venet collection)

Before Venet showed up to take me through the exhibition yesterday, I was staring at this 11-inch-wide neck piece from different angles, trying to figure out how it was worn. It’s a giant bow with no visible means of securing it to the neck. It almost looks like it was assembled as a choker – that if you pulled those curved wires free on both sides, it might hook behind the neck – but then, at the last minute, the artist turned it into a bow. (It would have made a stunning pendant on a choker wire.) But it sounds like he didn’t approach the project casually – and it doesn’t really look that way either.

Frank Stella's Memantra sculpture, Roof Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Viewers familiar with Stella’s sculpture will recognize the curves formed by the wire from full-size pieces like Memantra in the rooftop garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (right).

In the end, maybe he was more concerned with creating a minimized piece of his iconic sculpture than in producing easily-worn jewelry.

Venet says she begged Stella for years to make a piece for her collection, first directly and then through her husband, fellow sculptor and friend of Stella’s. Stella was, flat out, not interested. Then one day when the Venets were visiting, he produced this piece from a drawer and presented it to her as a gift. She was thrilled.

Diane Venet is a beautiful woman with that Parisian instinct that allows her to pull off just about anything and make it look chic. I’m sure the Stella neck piece is no exception. But when she told me she wears it on a black turtleneck, the image that came to mind was the oversized bowtie of a clown. Was Stella being tongue-in-cheek? Yet the central motif, viewed up close, is not at all casually done: a lovely piece of three-dimensional sculpture made sparkly by painting metal with gold.

The bottom line is that when you convince Frank Stella to make a piece of wearable art, you take what you get – and in Venet’s case, you wear it with pride.

Gold ring designed by Frank Stella, 2010, edition of five (Diane Venet collection)

A second piece by Stella is a polished gold ring, of which five were produced. I had seen photos but was surprised to see how enormous it was firsthand, more than three inches long and quite bulky.

When I asked Venet if it was wearable, I could tell by her smile that it falls into the category of wearable in the loose sense – as in yes, she manages to lug it through an evening on her finger. And I’m sure it makes an excellent conversation starter.

“You wear nothing else,” she said with her French accent. “Maybe just a simple black dress. And you keep your hand here.” She put her left hand on her right shoulder, and posed for a moment gazing sideways, then laughed.

Obviously, half the fun for Venet is finding a way to wear these pieces – and then wearing them.

Picasso to Koons: The Artist as Jeweler runs through January 8, 2012, at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York City.

Related posts:

Jewelry by famous artists

Jewelry by Picasso: the secret stash of Dora Maar

Alexander Calder’s jewelry: going mobile

Salvador Dalí: bejeweled surrealism

                          

Anna Torv wearing Lorraine Schwartz earrings with more than 80 carats of carved rubies at 2011 Emmy Awards

Sofia Vergara wearing Lorraine Schwartz emerald-and-diamond earrings at 2011 Emmy Awards

Aubrey Plaza wearing Lorraine Schwartz diamond cuffs and 20-carat diamond drop earrings at 2011 Emmy Awards

Elisabeth Moss in Lorraine Schwartz bronze champagne diamond earrings (and bronzed platinum diamond ring) at 2011 Emmy Awards

For the grand finale, when was the last time you saw fire opal mixed with amethyst on the red carpet – in an over-sized matching floral set? It took Heidi Klum to pull that one off:

Heidi Klum wearing Lorraine Schwartz floral earrings of fire opal, amethyst and diamonds at 2011 Emmy Awards and...

...her matching floral ring

It’s not the first time Heidi has strolled the red carpet wearing over-sized carved gems in nature-theme jewels. Here’s what she wore in 2008:

                          

January 11-14, 2012: International Jewellery Tokyo 2012 & 4th Tokyo Design & Fashion Watch Fair, Tokyo Big Sight, Japan

January 14-19, 2012: VicenzaOro Winter (gold jewelry, silverware and watches), Vicenza, Italy

January 18-22, 2012: London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, London, UK

January 29-31, 2012: Printor Lyon, Euroexpo, Lyon, France

Hall of Dreams at BaselWorld 2011

FEBRUARY 2012

February 1-5, 2012: Iberjoya, Madrid, Spain

February 5-9, 2012: Spring Fair International, Birmingham, UK

February 9-13, 2012: Bangkok Gems & Jewelry Fair, Bangkok, Thailand

February 10-13, 2012: Inhorgenta 2012 (international trade fair for jewellery, watches, design, gemstones and technology), Munich, Germany

February 16-20, 2012:  Hong Kong International Jewellery Show, Hong Kong

MARCH

March 4-7, 2012: Montreal Gift Show, Montreal, Canada

March 8-15, 2012: BaselWorld (international watch and jewelry show), Basel, Switzerland

March 16-25, 2012: TEFAF Maastricht art and antiques fair, Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre, The Netherlands

MAY

May 19-23, 2012: VicenzaOro Spring, Fiera di Vicenza S.p.A., Vincenza, Italy

May 30-June 3, 2012: New Russian Style 2012, All-Russian Exhibition Centre, Moscow, Russia

JUNE

June 1-4, 2012: JCK Show, Las Vegas

June 21-24, 2012: Asia’s Fashion Jewellery & Accessories Fair and June Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

June 22-24, 2012: Hyberabad Jewellery Pearl & Gem Fair, Mumbai, India

June 28-July 4, 2012: Masterpiece London 2012, Royal Hospital Chelsea, London, U.K.

JULY

July 3-4, 2012: Jovella International Jewelry Exhibition, Tel-Aviv, Israel

July 12-15, 2012: Singapore International Jewellery Show 2011, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

July 13-16, 2012: 13th Beijing International Jewellery Fair, China World Trade Center, Beijing, China

July 19-22, 2012: Malaysia International Jewellery Fair, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Malaysia

AUGUST

Aug. 12-14, 2012: JCK Toronto, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

August 28-30, 2012: Japan Jewellery Fair 2012, Tokyo Big Sight Exhibition Center, Tokyo, Japan

SEPTEMBER

September 2-4, 2012: JAA Australian Jewellery Fair, Sydney Exhibition Centre, Sydney, Australia

September 2-5, 2012: International Jewellery London, Earls Court 2, London, UK

September 4-5, 2012: Printor Paris, Palais Brongniart, Paris, France

September 8-12, 2012: VicenzaOro Fall, Vicenza, Italy

September 12-16, 2012: Iberjoya, Feria de Madrid, Spain

September 19-25, 2012: September Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair, AsiaWorld Expo and Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

NOVEMBER

November 10-13, 2012: Dubai International Jewellery Week, Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Dubai

Related posts:

Best craft shows in the U.S.

Jewelry trade & antique fairs in the U.S. 2011

Related product (Buying from links on this site doesn’t cost you extra but does add a few cents to the maintenance of this blog):

                          

You’d be amazed how much thought goes into the jewelry on this show, even for the background players. The only ones who get short-changed are the guys. Lawson discusses his approach to the fashion of each male character but not one watch or cufflink enters the discussion, not even for Cary, known as the clotheshorse of the men.

Photo: Eike Schroter/©2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc.

The women, on the other hand… If you’re a fan you’ve probably noticed that the females on this show have very distinct styles. They all work in a law firm – not known as the most creative halls of fashion – and yet all manage to look stylish and individualistic, as well as professional.

The first season opened with Alicia Florrick, a politician’s wife played by Julianna Margulies, re-entering the work force after a long hiatus. With her husband in prison, she’s rediscovering her individual identity, thrust into the limelight by her husband’s much-publicized affair with a prostitute. At the firm, she dresses elegantly but conservatively, doesn’t wear much jewelry but isn’t afraid to wear some serious stiletto pumps – four inches high at least. They lend her authority while showing off Margulies’ impressive gams.

“Julianna and I had a big discussion about her jewelry and we felt like the last thing she’s going to think about is jewelry,” Lawson says. In the first few episodes she wears nothing but diamond studs in her ears. But by the end of that season, she’s wearing necklaces, usually multi-strand silver or gold chains, sometimes a bracelet, varying her pieces from outfit to outfit. “She’s starting to think about it a little bit,” Lawson says.

Kalinda, my favorite character on the show, gets to wear the most outrageous ensembles, but the boldness is in her clothes, not her jewels. She favors a pair of boots you don’t find too often in a law firm: roll-down, knee-high black boots with stiletto heels – sort of streetwalker-meets-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean. She also wears mini-skirts, sometimes ruffled, fitted waists with wide belts, lots of black leather. Black works with the glossy hair piled on her head and her dramatic, black-rimmed eyes – definite hints of sixties-Mod with Kalinda – and is often paired with fitted tops in rich colors like violet and saffron.

With a look this bold, Lawson was probably right to go easy on the jewelry. Kalinda wears the same diminutive silver pieces in every scene, a small circle pendant on a delicate chain, small earrings, one bold ring on the middle finger – a finger I’ve never seen her lift but you know she would if this show was on HBO instead of CBS. The jewelry emphasizes Kalinda’s femininity – she’s tough but in an all-girl way. “She knows she looks fabulous. She doesn’t have to add anything to it,” Lawson says.

Kalinda defies so many clichés. She’s a loner, tiny but capable of destroying a car with a baseball bat in five strokes, or deducing the evil scheme of a foe and formulating a counter-scheme on the spot. She does whatever the situation calls for, is always right, and always gets her way – which is very satisfying. I love her relationship with Alicia and hope they make up in the next season or I’ll be very sad. (New season begins September 25.)

Archie Panjabi, the actress who plays Kalinda, says in the special feature that her character “is already so larger-than-life,” that she wanted to avoid clichés. Kalinda is a woman of mystery. “I felt the costume, to some extent, heightened her a little bit,” Panjabi says. “Just from seeing her, you can tell a story about who she is and where she’s from.”

Christine Baranski who plays Diane Lockhart, a partner at the firm, gets to have the most fun with her jewelry. “She’s more fashion-forward, her finger is more on the pulse of contemporary fashion,” Lawson says, adding that he had covered several tables with jewelry when she came in for her first fitting. “Oh! I see we have a lot of jewelry,” she remarked.

“We didn’t want to make her foolishly accessorized,” Lawson says. “We wanted to tell the story of who she was and she does pay attention to accessories.” She often wears the same ring, a three-band platinum and diamond number, but  sometimes trades it for big chunky opaque stones in dark neutral colors.

She never wears the same necklace twice and they vary from long Chanel-like chains to dramatic pendants, chunky colored stones, and multi-strand pearls of every variety. She’s not afraid to throw in costume pieces by Kenneth Jay Lane or Trifari if they works with her outfit.

Diane is the only character who rocks the lapel brooch, often forgoing a necklace for a buttoned up jacket with a big vintage pin, forties and fifties styles – mid-century modern attracts, bird motifs, a dragonfly. Lawson says the vintage pins were Baranski’s  idea. Diane is supposedly Old Money, so the idea is that the brooches were passed down through her family.

“You’d think that a pin would read very old school but somehow it reads very modern and chic on her. That’s my goal for her: business and chic and elegant,” Lawson says. “All three women really do have very different sensibilities when it comes to their jewelry.”

Related posts:

Sex & the City: the jewelry

Van Cleef & Arpels: celebrity style

Jewelry heist movies

Related products (buying through links on my site costs you nothing extra but puts a few pennies in my blog fund):

                          

What do you do when silver (or even recycled aluminum) is all you or your customers can afford? You get creative, of course! Here’s a sample of the silver jewels on offer at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver for the 3-day 4th of July weekend. (Check out the full schedule of my favorite craft shows in the U.S.)

Top to bottom:

All Fall Down necklace of sterling silver by Roné Prinz (roneprinz.com)

Stacked Saucer pendant of sterling silver and 18kt gold by Melle Finelli (mellefinellijewelry.com)

Square Swirl necklace and earrings of layered aluminum squares set into resin (with just a touch of silver) by Melissa Stiles (stubbornworks.com)

Necklace of sterling and copper by Steff Korsage (steffkjewelry.com)

Avocado necklace of sterling silver by Hilary Hachey (hilaryhachey.com)

Enigma bracelet of oxidized and polished sterling, 14k, 18k, white sapphire and pearls by Carol Fugmann.

Related posts:

Best craft shows in the U.S. (2011 calendar with links)

Hilary Hachey: random patterns in sterling

Jewelry for a blue moon

NICHE award winning jewelry

Enamel jewelry: palette of glass

Click on “jewelry maker” above and you’ll find plenty more!

                          

Silver lacquer box, 2011, of silver, gold powder and wood by Shinya Yamamura (ippodogallery.com)

I admit it. I’m obsessed with jewelry boxes. This is partly because my own jewelry is overflowing my current jewelry box, stashed in various velvet boxes and satin bags and getting harder and harder to find.

But I also love the idea of beautiful containers for beautiful ornaments. In a perfect world, I would have a whole collection of jewelry boxes and each would hold the jewelry that belongs in it.

In this century, wood became the standard material for jewelry boxes – and there are many stunning examples. But wood is only one option. Asprey & Garrard sell suede-lined portable jewelry cases of stamped calfskin. Bronze and carved stone containers have been around since antiquity.

What would you guess this jewelry box was made from?

Always Blooming copper jewelry box, 2008, by Ryu-Hee Kim with separate containers for each season

I bet “copper” wasn’t your first guess. Ryu-Hee Kim was an art student at Indiana University when she created this wonderful box from copper, with separate containers designed to represent all four seasons. It was intended to hold “special jewelry relating to each season.”

Gemstone has a rich history as jewelry containers go. Master lapidaries during the Renaissance carved vessels called Prunkgefasse— literally, pride- or magnificence-containers—from rare crystals from the Alps. In the 1920s, Cartier made Egyptian- and Chinese-inspired vanity cases embellished with coral, lapis, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires.

Containers carved of translucent alabaster date to antiquity. The bible even mentions them. Here’s a more recent example:

Alabaster containers designed and carved by Susan Zalkind (alabaster.net)

Can you think of a better place to store floral-theme jewelry – or a more luscious gift box to present a special piece? No one can capture the delicate beauty of a rose like Susan Zalkind, and she does it in alabaster, of all things. The containers she carves with husband Paul Hawkins come from stone they mine themselves, and range from sleek containers inlaid with fossil fish to Susan’s specialty: milky white, semi-translucent containers adorned with hand-carved flowers.

Each flower takes hundreds of hours to carve and their delicate petals look so real, the couple keeps them under glass at craftshows. “People try to smell them,” Susan says. “Old ladies come up and pinch them.”

Hexagonal intarsia box by Nicolai Medvedev of malachite, quartz, sugilite, turquoise, fossilized dinosaur bone, and cuprite. Interior of purpleheart, walnut, cherry wood, picture agate and 18kt gold (northamericangemcarvers.com)

Like the finest Fabergé objects, Nicolai Medvedev’s intarsia boxes are painstakingly handcrafted from high-karat gold, opal, amethyst, and what the Victorians referred to as hardstone: sugilite, malachite, lapis and azurite. Each 18kt gold hinge and clasp is hand-fabricated, each stone carefully shaped. Open a lid, and a jasper landscape appears beneath.

But the fascination of these boxes are their mosaic surfaces. Raised in Russia and trained at the Art Institute of Moscow, Medvedev is a master of intarsia, the labor-intensive lapidary art that flourished in western Europe during the 18th century. The geometric patterns he favors were inspired by the carpets of his homeland, Ashkhabad, Turkmenia, a Russian city near Iran, by the inlay in Middle Asian jewelry, and by the Fabergé he first saw at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Related posts:

Handcrafted wood jewelry boxes

Antique Chinese hair ornaments

More work by featured artists:

Shinya Yamamura

Susan Zalkind

Nicolai Medvedev

                          

2011 Super Bowl platinum ring designed by Jostens for the Green Bay Packers has 109 diamonds totally 3.35 carats set in 18kt gold (photo Jostens Inc.)

UPDATE: Here it is at last, the Green Bay Packers’ Super Bowl championship ring, presented to the team at a Thursday night celebration in Lambeau Field Atrium. The Packers bucked the recent trend to go with a name-brand jewelry designer like Tiffany or an edgier up-and-coming designer for Super Bowl rings, sticking instead with Jostens, the Minnesota-based company that has produced 29 of the 45 Super Bowl rings, and all four of the Packers’.

Green Bay Packers celebrated the inaugural Super Bowl in 1966 with this modest ring (Jostens)

Jostens’ approach to Super Bowl ring design  has come a long way since the first one they produced for the Packers in 1967 (right), set with a single one-carat diamond.

In keeping with the ever-increasing bling  of the big-time championship ring, this year’s has 109 diamonds – totally 3.35 carats – and weighs 116 grams (about four ounces).

Central motif in this year’s ring is the team’s G logo cast in 18kt gold and embedded with 13 diamonds representing  the team’s 13 NFL championships. The logo was placed on a green stone tablet and surrounded by four marquis-cut diamonds, representing the team’s four Super Bowl victories, and 92 more diamonds for their 92-year history. (A championship ring these days is a mathematical dilemma, measured out in diamonds.)

One side of the ring is engraved with images of Lambeau Field and the player’s name and team number, the other with an image of the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl XLV trophy. Inside the shank are the scores of Green Bay’s four postseason wins and the team motto: “One mind, goal, purpose, heart.”

Official statement from Packers president/CEO Michael Murphy: “The victory in Super Bowl XLV was a great achievement for the organization. Jostens has done a fantastic job of capturing the excitement of the win for everyone at the Packers.”

For the backstory on this ring and a short history of Super Bowl championship rings, see my February post: Super Bowl championship rings for the Packers

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She uses a combination of techniques and eco-friendly materials, with an emphasis on texture and movement. She also donates a percentage of all sales to charities such as the Komen Foundation.

How did you get involved in Reiki and how do you apply it to your jewelry designs?

When the sister of a friend found out she had leukemia, she asked for one of my necklaces and I decided to research healing stones to help her. I began cleansing my art jewelry, using sound (bells) and smudging – burning herbs and placing the stone or metal in direct contact with the smoke.

Reiki is more a process that I use after the piece is made. But being an artist opens me up to the Universe through the sheer act of creating. So in a sense, I apply a type of cleansing while I’m working. Applying Reiki after the piece is completed solidifies the healing process, at least for me.

Can you give me an example of a piece designed  with healing stones?

Waterfall (left), a collaborative piece I designed with wood turner Ed Kelle, combining his gorgeous textured, reclaimed walnut with a number of healing stones. Blue topaz helps with clarity and concentration. Labradorite protects one’s aura. Blue quartz produces a naturally balanced energy field. Apatite helps with healing, communicating and balancing energy. Smoky quartz disperses negative patterns. Aquamarine encourages the innate ability to always be prepared. And silver attracts and retains the qualities of the gemstones.

How do the other art forms and materials you work with affect your jewelry?

Sometimes a stone will spark a design – its matrix, color or shape. Sometimes it’s a material I want to work with – cement, wood or metal tubing – that brings forth the design. I prefer to use textures and materials that work with and against one another: dry wood against a shiny, “wet” stone, against cold metal. I enjoy juxtapositions.

My jewelry is formed from play and experimentation.  Each new piece becomes a bit more complex as I explore and learn.

How important is sustainability and eco-friendly material to your brand?

Extremely.  I can’t very well offer healing jewelry if collecting the materials I use causes harm to our environment or others. I make sure the wood is sustainable (re-used). I mainly purchase metals that have been recycled and I’m always dipping into my metal clippings. With the price of metal these days, I’m sure that more jewelers are re-using their scraps.

Fair Trade and “conscious” gems are harder to come by. There are few companies who can state that their gems come from mines they monitor. I buy opals from a family who owns a mine in Ethiopia and cabochons from either the mines themselves or people who cut the stones and have extensive knowledge of their origins.

If you walk into a bead store or buy online, you have no idea where the stones came from and who is mining them, how the miners are being treated or how well they’re paid. I try to be as knowledgeable as possible about the materials I use.

How does your background in fashion merchandising impact your jewelry?

I have the unusual ability to not only design but also merchandise my line. When I create a piece I take into account the amount of materials used, material prices, number of pieces in a vignette,  length of time to create, and current retail jewelry pricing.

But it really comes down to creating. If I’m feeling a particular way about the design of a piece, sometimes I throw my merchandising hat out the window and just enjoy myself.  There is a balance between the free flow of design and the merchandiser in me and I try to allow them to live together peacefully.

I recently launched Open Studio, Creative Mentoring so that I can guide other artists who want to better understand the wholesale market and how to cross into that business territory.

For more of Andrea’s creations, visit Andrea Rosenfeld Designs.