Boho All Around Us

Boho styled stacking silver rings.

A perennial favorite fashion choice is reasserting itself this season. It’s favorite look among those who love Boho style, stacked rings sitting at different points of your fingers which create a whimsical and romantic look. As if you’ve collected each ring on a great journey through out your life and whether or not they fit perfectly is not the point, it’s the memory that each ring represents. I love making these rings in my studio, they provide a fun relaxed counterpoint to making the more staid wedding rings that I work on.

Back after so long.

Birch bark textured wedding ring, with mountain range effect

I know it’s been an incredibly long time since I have updated my blog, but it’s been for a very good reason. So much has gone on and changed in my life that there really hasn’t been time to keep things running on a reasonable time frame, but now that things are slowing down I feel like I can step back into it. So what has been going on, well we’ve moved from sunny Charlotte, North Carolina to the beautiful Pacific North West, Seattle to be more precise. And I’ve never been happier.  It’s a gardener’s dream with long rainy springs that are filled with flowers and amazingly sunny summers that just never seem to end. It’s inspired so much new work that I just can’t wait to share with you all.

On My Workbench: Silver Apple Branch Rings and Leaf Pendants

I’ve been working hard this past week on some new pieces, both custom and for my ready to wear line. I’ll have some pictures of the custom piece for you next week, it’s coming along great, and it’ll really show you more about the process of how I make silver leaves. But this week I’ve been working on finishing up my new style of Apple Tree rings. They’re cast in fine silver, and come in both a high polish silver and in a black oxidized finish. I love the way these bands came out, there really comfy, and on the thinner side of the twig rings that I cast, only 3-5 mm wide. The textures are really well defined in the apple bark, much more so then the maple tree rings.

The other piece that I finished this week is a luxurious Art Deco style leaf pendant, that’s set with a 5mm faceted White Topaz. The pendant’s hanging from a really incredible matching Art Deco style chain. Like my other leaves, I cast this Sage leaf after growing it in the garden. I hand carved the setting for the stone and set in the hand-made bail. This is a really special looking piece, the veining of the sage leaf sparkles and so does the stone, the entire piece is just so amazingly reflective.

 

The Blue Angel – A New Orleans Treasure

In early 2004, I took a visit to see one of my closest friends in New Orleans. She had been living there for a few years and I always looked forward to my trips to visit her Down South, where we would feast on Southern food, visit cemeteries, wander around the Garden District, go on Swamp Tours, and just generally have a wild time of it. My favorite part though was always the days we would walk around Metairie Cemetery. There is nothing like Metairie where I grew up. The graves are all monuments to life. Beautiful marble, stained glass, shinning brass, and copper turning teal in the salt tinged humid air.

We had been to Metairie at least twice before on this trip, taking pictures and walking around, most importantly trying to get a good picture of my favorite Angel  “The Angel of Grief.”  But the doors to the Mausoleum that she is located, The Chapman H. Hyams Tomb had always been locked. But on that lucky day the doors were wide open, no lock, no chains on the doors at all. The statue was bathed in an incredible blue light, which was shining down on it from three different stain glass windows, one a beautiful floral tiffany window, the other two were simple blue abstract designs. That day it was like everything was meant to be, not only were the doors open, but the normally pale blue tinged light was a deep violet blue creating a dramatic visual effect. The statue of “The Angel of Grief” was carved out white marble, in Carara Italy by William Wetmore Story and then shipped to New Orleans Louisiana.