This design is quintessential for my process of cusotm designing.
Kate came in nearly
sure that no one could do as she wished. She and her beloved had each found a beautiful, richly colored rock on the same magical excursion in nature. The rock she had found, a pretty shade of green, was a smooth and interesting shape, but about as large as Kate felt she could "pull off" in a ring. But ideally, her groom's red rock sould be incorporated, as well. What to do?
My design idea was to leave the green rock basically intact, except to cut a circular disk out of it, which would be inlaid with an identical disk of the red rock. The colors looked great together, and the symbolism was the clincher. A simple, 14K two-tone mounting completed the concept. But will it work?
Some rock materials are used in jewelry with some regularity: lapis lazuli, malachite, rhodochrosite. Generally, rocks that are of fine enough quality to qualify as gem rocks have fairly consistent and predictable behavior. Which means that decisions such as shaping, cutting, filing, finishing, and inlaying can be readily made.
But these rocks were not gem rocks. They were just rocks. Just really beautifuly ones. But, as non-gem rocks, while I could certainly have attempted to educate myself on them, I still wouldn't be able to learn anything about cutting or doing inlay work with them--no data. But I felt their existence told me everything I needed to know. The green rock was clearly water-tumbled, and so had survived a lot, through the millenia. It would be stable. I just had to take a chance cutting the red one.
Could not have gone more smoothly.
