Palette of Gems

It's an extreme pleasure to be able to actually create the 'painter's palette' that I use when designing jewelry. From a week's hard work, I have a new spectrum of different colors and shapes to choose from. Each new stone has been hand polished on the lapidary machines by me, and by the time that we're done with that journey, I've had enough time with them to imagine how I'd like to set them.

Plume Agate

with Marcasite

Usually, I can barely wait to set the stones I've just polished from raw rocks. These were some ugly ducklings in the field that turned out to be quite exciting in the studio. New colors, minerals, shapes, and dendritic forms emerged in front of my very eyes when polishing these stones. Not to mention the fact that they had some very nice saturated colors.

Echoes in the Stone

Set to work I did on this setting this piece of honey colored agate with white, blue and marcasite dendrites blooming through it like a skipped stone echoing a bouquet of ripples on a pond. I was so mesmerized by this little one that I went back to the raw rock pile to look for more of any similar kind. I am happy and relieved to say that there are a few more stones with this patterning so I don't have to keep this one.