Look Again

Photographer Dewitt Jones was doing an assignment for a magazine. He was to be dropped off at one location and soon picked up there and taken to the place where he'd be shooting. He waited at the designated location. Looked at his watch. Waited some more.

Finally, he said to himself, "Dewitt, look around." He started shooting.

Nothing ever came of the original project. The photographs he took while he was waiting, just looking around, ended up in the magazine.

Getting from Point A to Point B with a group of kids can be a challenge, because they're always looking around. As a kid, I loved to look at rocks under water. Turns out half the work in jewelry design and restoration involves looking closely at things, until you can see beyond the obvious.

Take Michele's bracelet.



When I first looked at it, all I saw was a broken bracelet with mystery metal (usually called "base metal"), busted tabs, and missing links.

I kept looking at it.

Problems emerged: The mystery metal proved to be metalized plastic, meaning that adding metal, soldering, and laser welding were all out of the question. There seemed to be no way to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

It was tempting to give up. But by then I had fallen in love with the pattern in those squares. There were working tabs on one of them. What if we put that square front and center, and built the bracelet around it?

Fine, but what kind of bracelet? Well, black and gold, right? Yes and no. There are many shades of black. Onyx proved to be the closest in color.

One more challenge: The original bracelet contained three segments with side tabs connected near the base with links. How to get the new one to align properly? Saucers saved the day. They were just wide enough to anchor the bracelet at the center. I used a slightly smaller round onyx to create a two-strand bracelet dotted with 14K gold-filled beads, then made the African ceramic and onyx earrings to complete the set.



And no, we haven't given up on those other two squares. Stay tuned.

©2009, 2013 Laynie Tzena.

Breathing Room

Pianist Randy Weston once said of Count Basie, "He was a master of space. He knew the notes not to play."

When Judie brought in this necklace, she asked, "Do you think I should leave it as it is?"



Judie is delicate, even at 5'7". The necklace was a good six inches across. When she put it on, it looked as though the necklace were wearing her.

I said, "Sure, if you want to gain 50 pounds, or be a drag queen."

Lots of people would probably disagree.

"It's Ruby Z! How can you say that?"

I love Ruby Z. Look at the bird in the center of the necklace. Look at those leaves. Just gorgeous. But add them together and the composition works better as wall art than to wear--at least for Judie.

As a necklace, it needed breathing room.

So we freed the bird. He's now perched on an onyx, crystal, and Czech glass necklace.



And we spread out the leaves. They are accompanied by freshwater pearls, vintage German glass, Czech glass, and sodalite.



Oh, and just between us, sodalite might be an underrated gemstone. Where lapis has flecks of gold, sodalite is often marbled with white, making it a natural companion for pearls.

And who doesn't love pearls?

©2009 Laynie Tzena.

Music for Josie

Here's a flower pin. Just beautiful. But too little for Josie.

Josie Weiss was a big person. Not tall, or wide, not in-your-face. Josie had presence. She was funny and feisty and had the kind of light in her voice some people have--a lilt, I guess--that always made you want to hear more.

She died a few years ago, and I miss her. Mostly, I miss her voice. I miss her spirit.

But appointments were, shall we say, fluid. Oh, Josie! One time they were working on my apartment and I was staying in a hotel. Josie was coming over to see the next stages of a project we were working on. She was later than usual.

In the hotel office they had a little coffee pot. I soon discovered that Josie was downstairs drinking that coffee and schmoozing with the
hotel staff.

She brought in the pin.

"Let me think about it," I said.

What to do? I knew it needed a frame, but to put more silver around it with that amber at the top would look funny; it would be unbalanced.

I drew a few things. Nothing worked.

"What have I gotten myself into?" I wondered--not for the first time.

I kept looking at the flower.

Suddenly, I realized that, inverted, it would look like a musical note. We put citrine at the top of the bezel to balance the amber (now at the bottom) and, as the English-speaking Canadians say, "Voy-la!" I designed the coordinating necklace with amber, Israeli silver, and hematite.



Her family tells me Josie wore that pendant and necklace all the time. Just about every time I saw her, she was wearing it--sometimes, with things I might not have worn it with. But Josie could pull it off.

©2009 Laynie Tzena.

The Doctor Will See You Now

Let's start here.



Each person's style is different. Helen could have said, "I want you to rebuild this bracelet exactly the way it was." And, assuming she had all of the loose coral or I could get the same shade of salmon coral* from my sources, that's what we would have done.

But she didn't say that.

She said, "What can we do with this? It just isn't me."

So we talked about her style, the kind of jewelry she likes to wear, what she thought she'd like. She decided she wanted a necklace and earrings. Something classic.

So I designed this for her.



She was very happy.

And we had coral left over.

So I designed the bracelet to match the necklace.

And we still had coral left over.

So we put our heads together about what to do next. And Helen said, "This time I want something funky."

And I designed this set with birch, copper, and one of my favorite gemstones, unakite, to go with the remaining coral.



And you know what? We still have some coral. No immediate plans.

*Yes, I know some coral is endangered. I don't design with that coral for my collection. If someone asked for a three-strand set like the one in the picture, I'd use sponge coral or would recommend using lapis, onyx, or red tiger's eye, all of which are plentiful. In this case, the coral buying was done many years ago, when coral was not endangered. We didn't buy any for the re-design; in fact, we ended up with extra!

©2009, 2019 Laynie Tzena.