Custom Jewelry Design - A Rewarding Aspect of My Work

One of the most interesting aspects of my job is working with customers on custom jewelry pieces. Frequently this involves resetting diamonds in 18K gold or platinum. After wearing a wedding ring for many years or inheriting a gemstone from an older relative, people often look to breathe new life into a deeply meaningful stone. Using my existing designs as a starting point, we discuss, sketch, and go back and forth – whether in person or through text and email -- to come up with a new piece of jewelry, perhaps a ring, necklace or bracelet. Sometimes this can be tricky because the customer may have several stones they want to include in the design, however, a ring – particularly one that’s going to be worn every day - has limited space. Too many stones leave little room for the design itself and I try to explain that less is more in this case.

Often, custom work involves a variation of one of my jewelry designs. In this case, the piece is personalized for a particular event like a birthday or an anniversary. This can be as simple as using a person's birthstone in one of my existing necklace designs. For some customers, it’s creating a necklace using the birthstones of children or grandchildren. For one customer, with three grandchildren, it was an 18K gold necklace with garnet, aquamarine, and sapphire. When a fourth grandchild was born, I added a pear-shaped diamond to complete the family.

Sometimes a custom jewelry job is open-ended. A customer might come to me because she or he wants to create a special present for someone and all the customer knows is that the design has to involve a certain gemstone. One customer, for example, wanted emeralds set in a specially designed pair of 18K gold earrings. In this case, we started from scratch, working to create earrings that were just right. It was a productive collaborative process that led us to a finished pair of earrings that pleased us both. There have been many times that this kind of custom work has challenged me to move in new artistic directions.