I have enough imaginative material in my little head to outlast Methuselah. I realize I’ll never make everything I’ve imagined; it’s heartbreaking. I resort to grouping my rocks in a triage system, filed by my personal lust for what I wanna see made first. I also hoard things or keep them a secret until I’m ready to let them go. Sometimes, someone comes along and throws me for a loop. I have had other clients ask me to make special pieces, and I loved creating them, but for some reason, Madame X’s requests get my creative wings flapping.
The parameters: Several family birthstones, sapphire (any color) aquamarine, emerald and opal. “And anything else you decide on as you make it. It can be understated, or completely flamboyant. Symmetrical-ish or totally mismatched. However it comes together”.
It came together, but it wasn’t anything that I thought it would be. Apparently that’s a good thing:
“If you decide at the beginning where you want it to go – it’s not going to be very interesting” – Davis Guggenheim (director) during a press conference at the Toronto Film Festival promoting the documentary “It Might Get Loud”.
Initially I sent my client a picture of some rocks and included my new favorite (in hoarding) fossils: Gorgeous, glittery, druzy seashells excavated from the Sahara desert. It used to be a sea floor a gazillion years ago.
Components For Custom Necklace: Opal, Aquamarines, Emeralds, White Sapphires & Druzy Fossil Seashells
Guess what? Madame X grew up and lived by the sea for decades. Sometimes I’m psychic.
I spend way too much time figuring out how things “hang”, and what they should “hang” from.
Playing With The Drops
Creating Opal & Emerald LInks
Then I got to work and fell in love. Here’s an excerpt of an email I sent:
“I had to stop and take a shot of the pendant part. It’s so gorgeous I can’t even stand it! The picture does not do it justice. I am drooling. It’s making me rethink all the stuff I was going to make. I hope you like it. Actually I hope you LOVE it. I’m having trouble finishing it – it’s so distracting”.
I hate it when this happens. It was a sad, poignant day when I shipped the piece.
Opal Emerald Aquamarine Necklace With Druzy Fossil Shell Drops
Full View of Opal Aquamarine Emerald Necklace With Druzy Fossil Seashell Drops
This is the reason that I do what I do. Thank you Madame X.
Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent
Gorgeous. I LOVE this necklace! I will be in touch as soon as things settle down for me. Please save me a few of these AMAZING shells.
Thanks Kate. I’ll have to stop hoarding the rest.
No hoarding!! I must say that your work gets more and more stunning with every piece you make. I am seriously in love with that necklace. If Madame X doesn’t adore it — and I KNOW she will LOVE it — I would be SOOO tempted!! XOXO
Madame X is lucky, and so are all of us! Love my labradorite earrings, and get lots of comments on them. And you are also lucky, to have the muse working overtime so that you need to triage ideas. Great image.