Collaborative Jewels

During the many decades we've been making jewelry we have mostly each done our own designs and finished pieces although at the idea level we collaborate a lot and inspire each other and share ideas and techniques. But 20 or so years ago we got into doing a series of collaborative pieces where each of us did part of the design and construction. Often one of us would make a piece that was to be part of a jewel and the other one of us would then figure out how to add other parts to make a finished piece. We played with this method for a number of years, never a lot of pieces but an ongoing game.

In this piece to the left I made the semi circular piece at the top with cut out and riveted pieces backed by a stamped silver background. Carlie incorporated that piece into a necklace that was part of a series of large pieces she was doing at the time. This piece is copper, silver, brass and yellow & rose gold. A large piece of lapis that I polished is at the bottom. Also fresh water pearls on the sides of the hinge mechanism.





At the right is a piece that I just finished.
2 or 3 years ago Carlie was making some butterfly forms into pendants. The basic butterfly form of this one she made but wasn't happy with, it had a couple of glitches so she put it in a box of probable rejects. I saw it at the time and found it interesting so took it and put it one of my many boxes of possibilities. As I've been working, getting ready for our Sacramento show coming up next weekend I was looking through some of these boxes and ran across it and decided to see if I could turn it into a finished piece of jewelry. Here is the result. I added the center piece and put black onyx and a copper disc and gold ball on it, added a bail at the top and lines representing feelers and added a garnet hanging from the bottom. I think it turned out kind of nice.