Women inspect jewelry on holiday shopping season

Shoppers inspect jewelry marked down 50% at the Macy's flagship store Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2007 in New York's Herald Square. Retailers opened earlier than ever on the day after Christmas on Wednesday and slashed prices with hopes of salvaging a holiday season that is falling short of already modest expectations.


Iraqi women browse for gold jewelry in the Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah in northern Baghdad, Iraq on Friday, Dec. 28, 2007.
Source: yahoo

The fine art of jewelry; Glass Pavilion is the setting for a cutting-edge show

‘Dieg Bou Diar,’ a necklace by Mieke Groot. ( THE BLADE/HERRAL LONG ) Zoom Photo Reprints

It’s thinking that’s definitely outside the treasure chest.

Jewelry that is more often about concept than beautifying the wearer; more about precious creativity and technical skill than precious stones and metals that will hold their market value.

GlassWear: Glass in Contemporary Jewelry, through Jan. 31, is the first show to visit the Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion since the building opened in August, 2006 with a display of the museum’s own works. In two of the pavilion’s five galleries, the free exhibit features 130 pieces.

“This is a cutting-edge show for a cutting-edge building,” says Jutta-Annette Page, the museum’s curator of glass.

It is an excellent representation of global styles drawn from Cape Town to Melbourne, Brazil to Japan. Notably absent, however, are local glassmakers. Ursula Neuman, the show’s curator, said she’s not aware of any Toledo glass-art jewelers.

“It is a very special thing for glass artists to think in smaller scale and many of them won’t touch it,” she says. Selecting 60 artists from 150 she invited to submit works, Ursula Neuman, curator of jewelry at the Museum of Arts & Design in Manhattan, created the show in conjunction with the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim in southwestern Germany. (Schmuck is the German word for jewelry.)

Necklace and bracelet combo by Jacqueline I. Lillie. ( THE BLADE/HERRAL LONG ) Zoom Photo Reprints

“I feel jewelry is very innovative as an art form. And glass is as well,” says Neuman, in Toledo for the exhibit’s recent opening.

The popularity of glass in jewelry has ebbed and flowed during the 4,000 years it has adorned people. The current flow began about 50 years ago in Europe and grew as artists discovered new techniques they could do in their own studios.

“Transparency, color, reflections, separation of images, disruption of geometry, imperceptibility, and optical lightness — it is for these qualities and effects that at certain creative moments I choose to use glass and mirrors,” writes renowned goldsmith Giampaolo Babetto, in the exhibit’s accompanying English-German catalog, GlassWear.

Curator Neuman notes that jewelry has often been stigmatized as trinketry, but an exhibit such as this, which will travel to Germany, New York, and other venues after Toledo, can be an image-enhancer.

‘Victory’ by Pierre Cavalan. Zoom Photo Reprints

“It is not easy to get across to visitors that contemporary jewelry need not continually invoke the classic jewelry tradition of gold, silver, and precious stones,” writes Cornelie Holzach, director of the Schmuckmuseum, in the catalog.

Some of these brooches and necklaces could be worn, such as New Englander Linda MacNeil’s 22 polished and faceted squares of clear glass that catch the eye more than the pair of six-inch diameter white-gold circles, encrusted with diamonds, to which they’re attached.

And it would be a stretch, but an Amsterdam artist’s necklace of golf-ball sized clear-glass beads, interwoven with precise cubes made from tomato-paste cans fashioned by a craftsman she met in a Senegal market, could enhance the shoulders on a rare occasion.

So could a necklace of 100 luminous blue and green, chandelier-like glass droplets, created by a Londoner as she held an image of Dora Maar’s tears in mind. Photographer and painter, Maar was Picasso’s beautiful, sad lover and model in the 1930s and 1940s.

Evert Nijland, at 36 one of the youngest artists here, made a particularly elegant 24-inch necklace of tiny, spring-green glass beads folded into barely-pink fluted forms reminiscent of Art Nouveau

‘Difficult to Swallow,’ a wall installation by Timothy Horn. ( THE BLADE/HERRAL LONG ) Zoom Photo Reprints

“By melting and layering individual fragments of glass, I am able to achieve painterly effects evocative of moods, memories, and places,” writes Jaroslav Kodejs, of the Czech Republic. Indeed, his small, square brooch of glass, silver, and gold, possesses Klimt-like color.

But much in these 25 cases was never intended for the body, notably, the 50-foot-long necklace with giant, hollow glass “beads” strung on black, knotted ship rope, and a how-do-you-keep-that-from-breaking tiara made of slender, lab pipettes made of Pyrex. Nor the necklace made of aggressively jagged bottle-necks.

Two artists use use vials as reliquaries, one to contain dried roses, the other sealing items into laboratory ampoules as reminders of important moments -- dried petals from the artist’s wedding, her cat’s ashes, a lock of baby hair, and even oil, Lake Erie water, and borax powder.

Rather than grouping works according to chronology or nationality, Neuman defines five roles that glass can play: as chameleon (impersonating gemstones or flowers, for example); as surface and structure (it’s architectural, and can transform light and color); recycled glass (beach and antique glass, a poison bottle, transfigured industrial glass); glass as symbol and metaphor (transparent, opaque, flashy, unfathomable; both fragile and hard), and glass as glass (its inherent properties are refracting and reflecting light).

Throughout the show’s run, the museum will offer free and low-cost workshops for adult and teen visitors to make glass beads, pendants, and ornaments working at table-mounted torches, a technique called flameworking. Sessions, some with fees, are listed at www.toledomuseumorg.
Source: toledoblade

Jewels For The Jungle Auction

After all the huge jewelry auctions of rare stones and blockbuster designer pieces, Sotheby's "Jewels for the Jungle" auction offers a collection that is less pricey and quirkier than most. The auction, which takes place on December 4 in Amsterdam includes the jewelry you might expect at a Sotheby's auction but also features a private collection of animal figures and animal-inspired jewelry pieces that will be sold to benefit of the World Wildlife Fund. The selections are adorably quirky including a gold tree set with gemstone ornaments, and a diamond "Ram's Head" necklace by Cartier. The top lot is a small Buccellati seated monkey figurine that is estimated to sell for 6,000 to 8,000 euros.
Source: luxist

Wildflower Organics' Recycled Leather Jewelry

Wildflower Organics offers a range of cuffs, earrings, and necklaces fashioned from scrap leather salvaged from a shoe factory in Indonesia.

Carved into polished organic shapes and available in either black or mocha hues, the pieces are simple yet striking, and are meant to develop a patina of character with wear. Prices start at $33 for a pair of earrings with sterling-silver hooks. Wildflower Organics
Source: treehugger

Gold jewelry show

Jewelry producers must continue to find ways to pass along the rising costs, and price increases are likely, analysts say. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

Rings are displayed at a jewelry fair in Bangkok

Rings are displayed at a jewelry fair in Bangkok October 11, 2007. Cartier has joined Tiffany & Co in boycotting gems like rubies and sapphires from Myanmar after the country's military rulers carried out a bloody crackdown on a peaceful pro-democracy protest. But in neighboring Thailand, where the majority of Myanmar's gems are bought and sold, the stone merchants have yet to be put off business with Myanmar's military junta. REUTERS/Arthur Jones Dionio

Buccellati Magnolia Flower Earrings

Handcrafted using Renaissance-era methods, Buccellati jewelry is known for being intricately detailed. An up close look confirms these Magnolia Flower earrings are no exception. The 18-karat white gold petals are as delicately veined as you would find them in nature and the yellow gold flower centers are realistically interpreted with dimension and depth.

Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad try on jewelry at The Style Villa at the Caesar's Palace Hotel in Las Vegas

Source: yahoo

Jewelry Displayed in a Giant M&M

photo by cariberry

The Sparkle of Summertime Jewelry

The glittering water, pale sand and clear skies of a summertime beach vacation will soon be just memories, but there's a way to keep them alive until next year: the aquamarine, coral pink, turquoise and deep blue tones of sea-colored gems.

The latest collection at Chanel Fine Jewelry centers on the geometrical perfection and lines of art deco, drawing on the atmosphere of the seaside that founder Coco Chanel was so fond of visiting. The earring, pendant and ring designs feature either aquamarine and turquoise or coral and tourmaline stones set in 18-karat white gold with cacholong—a variety of opal—and diamonds (price on request ; chanel.com).

Aurum Jewellers, founded on the island of Jersey in 1968, didn't have to look far to find the inspiration for its newest collection. Award-winning designer Alexa Blampied finds the muse for her creations in the natural beauty of the Channel Islands, off the coast of Britain. Her white-gold Water Garden pendant, with sapphire, aquamarine, garnet and diamond ($25,850), is well complemented by her pair of Vitality drop earrings ($17,390; aurumjewellers.co.uk). The British designer Stephen Webster ( stephenwebster.com) uses the latest laser-cutting techniques to perfect his collection, including a Jewelvine ring set with chrysocolla and black sapphire ($19,800), and the Crystal Haze Classic white-gold bracelet with turquoise and diamonds ($17,000). A gem fanatic, he captures the gleam of some of the palest gemstones.

Theo Fennell, the eccentric creator of silver Heinz ketchup and Smirnoff vodka bottles (theofennell.com), shows that he is about more than just gimmickry with his delicate Cradle rings, in white gold. From the 18-karat marquise, with its delicate oval-shaped aquamarine (from $12,000), to the mint-green octagon tourmaline model (from $12,000), his creations are redolent of summer afternoon shades and cloudless vistas. The latest Tiffany rings (tiffany.com) will bring back those romantic summer moments. The channel-set band ring, with dark blue sapphires and diamonds ($3,500), or the platinum shared-setting pink sapphire and diamond model ($3,755) capture memories of summer's deep blue lakes and multicolored sunset skies.
Source: newsweek

Mark Silverstein Tattoo Jewelry

From Mark Silverstein

Jewelry salesman

A man selling jewelry at a craft show in Akron. August 2005.
Photo by BohPhoto

A jewelry store displays a marijuana leaf-shaped pendant made from silver and gold in Culiacan

A jewelry store displays a marijuana leaf-shaped pendant made from silver and gold in Culiacan, northern Mexican state of Sinaloa, July 11, 2007.

From the lush mountain valleys of Peru to America's toughest streets, ruthless Mexican gangs are grabbing control of the world's multi-billion dollar cocaine and crystal meth smuggling trade, with Culiacan as the nerve center of the most powerful drug gangs in the hemisphere. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters)

Seashell Jewelry Hollywood California

Photo by Christopher Peterson

Afghan ethnic jewelry and accessories booth

Precious jewelry and beautiful models