Thoughts on 20th Anniversary Collection

this is a ring from the new collection.

While drawing this collection, I surrounded myself every morning with flowering dogwood and cherry blossoms and was deeply inspired by the turn of the century works of Faberge and Lalique so full of poetry and astonishing detail. I realized that movement was inherent to the butterfly and that the pieces, like a lot of Faberge's work, had to have a magical secret to them-- in my own early pieces I made pieces with mystery such as an anatomical heart ring with a hidden door, a 'Travel Book' that opened to expose a tiny keyhole with a picture inside. This new collection goes back stylistically to my earliest creations in that they are all about the power of the secret.

I think of these pieces as small meditations to be worn together or next to each other. Making the Wedding Dress and Flower Girl necklaces, I thought of the dense silver and gold charm bracelets worn by my mother and grandmother that I played with as a child. Each pendant contains a private meaning, a poem that carries a potency that helps tell the unique narrative of the person who wears it.…. I am so proud of every single piece—they are magic--- and am so happy to present them at this milestone in my life as a designer.

Fiore Necklace

While working on this collection I did many drawings of flowering quince, cherry and dogwood that I had all around in my studio. Quince was the perfect flower in which to hide a poem.

I had thought a lot about how Faberge hid poetic secrets inside his eggs and I felt challenged to make something in this spirit. Each of the 4 outside petals I carved individually from wax . On the sterling version the inside petal is gold and contains the verse from Rumi translated by Coleman Barks.

Esme Earrings

I carved this small piece of moss from a piece of wax and it is articulated on the back as well as the front. It took days and a lot of concentration and many drawing studies. Juxtaposed against the detail, it has a small clean oval where the engraving sits that quiver when worn. These are my favorite earrings to date.

Giles Ring

I think of this ring as a small sculpture. It was a free form experiment and it looked very funky in the wax. We cast it as an afterthought just to see how it would turn out and it became an instant favorite in the studio immediately inspiring the larger Kothari ring and the babies, Katja and Teja. Gold plates are laminated to the ends where the poetry sits and I used rose gold on the 18k version. I think it would make an unusual and distinctive choice for a his and hers set paired with the Kothari.

Treasure

many of the charms on my mother's bracelet move, like this circus monkey.

When I was little I played with my mom's charm bracelet all the time. It was in the scale I loved! The fact that the charms moved, opened and jingle-jangled when worn just made it as fascinating as the story it was telling charm by charm. It was as large as my head, or at least it seemed. Mom just let me play with it agian for this photo...and I have secretely been wearing it a bit...I am having a big love affair with charms right now as a result.

This was my grandmother's gold charm bracelet from the 60's. Each on has a date on the back.

Avalon

When I first started making jewelry I discovered early on that I could engrave very minute words into metal and that a poem worn against the skin was very intimate. It was a cool secret that I had an entire Rilke poem hiding against my wrist. Quirky and idiosyncratic it was like nothing I had ever seen before. I started making one of a kind book pendants that had details, like keyholes with photographs smaller than a grain of rice, and sometimes the odd tiny sea horse under glass.

For this 'book' necklace I hammered the wings out of metal and that is what gives it an Art Nouveau feeling as I used an old world technique. You can see one of the two Rumi poems through the crystal set on the wing. The other wing has a plate of gold that carries two different Rumi poems. I love this piece most of all because it takes me back to the idea of the book --only this book can fly. It hangs open, closes or inside out for a more abstract textural look to the wings.