A Passion

Margaret Diehl — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:23:32 +0000

started to make jewelry about three 1/2 years ago, when my life felt difficult and lonely. I’d always wanted to but put it off for one reason or another. Very soon, the obsession took hold. The beauty of the stone and glass, the vintage beads, the pearls, cloisonne, lava–all of it was like the rocks I used to collect as a child, like my various assortments of treasures, and like writing when writing was new. My excuse for buying too many beads was that, as a writer, I was used to have the entire resources of the language available to me: that abundance was my inspiration. Now I regret the money I spent, since I need it and since business is very slow, but I still love my beads. In this blog I will talk about making jewelry but also about the nature and quality of stones, how glass beads are made, and other aspects of the craft and business.

The Metroploitan Museum recently had a show of pietre dure, the art of working with semi-precious stones and marble to create tables, cabinets, and such things as screens celebrating the birth of a child. The form started in Florence in the 1600′s and continues today. The work in the exhibit was exquisite, and it was exciting for me to see so many stones–jaspers, agates, lapis,malachite–that I have made jewelry from.

One of the earliest masters of this art was a Florentine named Cosimo Castrucci. His son Giovanni moved to Prague, where he established a workshop to produce pietre dure pieces for the Rudolfine court. The detail above is from a piece produced by this workshop.