Last year, after learning how to crochet (or, at any rate, after learning how to hold a crochet hook), I promised myself that I'd introduce myself to a new craft each year. So, I've been very pleased to have had jewellery-making creep upon me unexpectedly.
All of my own everyday jewellery was stolen a few years ago; not a significant monetary loss since all of it was ‘fake’ but a disappointment nonetheless since it had been carefully curated and was irreplaceable.
I found that I didn't quite like what I saw in the market. Or liked it, and found that I was too miserly to buy it — I'd wanted a painting-in-a-pendant to start off with, and found some truly lovely pieces being sold but they cost significantly more than I was willing to pay for them.
My solution was to buy a pack of bezels, and stick pictures into them. The first, an Indian miniature cut out from the page of a book.
I used Fevicol instead of varnish — should anyone ever need the information: there are different types of Fevicol and at least one of them is transparent when it dries. Of course, after pouring it out, I didn't spend the next half hour obsessively Googling: "How long does Fevicol take to dry?"
Making other pendants was then easier. A close-up from the Book of Kells cut out of a postcard, religious but not ostentatiously pious, a Ravi Varma portrait from some packaging, and flowers from a 5-year-old pocket diary.
The gold paint I added made the lady look like a mediæval icon. Not a problem if one doesn't mind that (and I don't) but perhaps not quite true to the artist's intentions.
Plenty of elements simply came from bits and bobs around the house:
The large brown beads with golden flecks in them which I used in one necklace were once handbag charms, removed since I prefer my bags unembellished, while the turquoise millefiori beads came from a bit of an obsession I began to develop with them and various other lampwork beads after reading The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier in which a woman lives through the centuries, courtesy a conceit which makes Venetian time run slowly, embodying resilience, pragmatism and a devotion to her art.
Of course, I had a few mishaps along the way too… One morning, a tube of glitter glue exploded all over me while I was trying to make a pendant for a friend. Thankfully, I happened to be wearing a dress I hated so I wasn't unhappy to see the last of it and, as a result, our rangoli this festive season sparkled; I wanted to safely use all that I had.
Most of my stock of glitter glue is now over. I'm not sure I trust myself to handle it safely.
Other experiments turned out better, and I find that I'm much happier counting beads than imaginary sheep to counter daily stresses.
I don't have the faintest idea how to do anything complicated but find that I enjoy simply stringing beads together and being up to my eyeballs in crimps and chains, jump rings and split rings, beads and bails, most of which I'd never given a thought to and certainly wouldn't have been able to name a few months ago.
I'm also beginning to find my way around pliers — who knew there are so many kinds?! And, as a bonus, I've finally strung together shiny red plastic beads I bought on holiday in Bologna some 35 or more years ago.
I'm not sure what, if anything, this adds up to but it brings me joy.
Along the way, I've been reminded of how much minerals and gemstones fascinated me when I was younger (I had a beautifully illustrated encyclopedia), and of my quartz collection, a few pieces gifted to me, and the occasional one bought, the most ordinary-looking stones sometimes split apart to reveal wonders.
My rock collection too was stolen (long, long ago). Much to my chagrin, I once saw what I'm certain was my largest piece, white quartz on one side of a stone about a square foot large, embedded in the floor of a shop, and have little doubt the thief handed it over to the owners to curry favour and friendship. I'd taken a toothbrush and soapy water to it so many times as a child that each undulation is imprinted in my mind.
I'm now trying to reintroduce myself to rocks… It is just slightly ironic to me that my love of necklaces ultimately seems to boil down to: “I like rocks.”
I hardly ever use jewellery. I haven't put on a pair of earrings for over a decade, and I now find that I won't be able to without first visiting a doctor; my ear-holes have closed. But rocks…! Though my collection is long gone, as it turns out, necklaces enable me to turn that interest, anything but dead, into ‘useful’ objects.
One of my projects has been to try to recreate a necklace my mum lost, a white pearl and black onyx necklace interspersed with golden beads from Grenoble. It was lost on a visit to relatives in Shillong in the 1990s, apparently flushed down the loo we were later told once it clogged the drains. The less said about that visit, the better.
I used inexpensive black tourmaline and white moonstone instead of the original pearl and onyx along with brass beads.
“Jewelry is symbol and signifier, a tangible stand-in for intangible things. It can mean not just wealth and power but also safety and home,” as Aja Raden says right at the beginning of Stoned which I've been reading. I think I know exactly what she means when she talks about jewellery being about more than wealth and power.
I also love how it can take one on a tour of the world, whether it's through the earth's history as Baltic amber, Australian Mookaite, Kambaba Jasper (usually from Madagascar), or American Shattuckite do, to name but a few, or through artistic traditions like those of making lac beads (in Kashmir) or lampwork beads.
More than anything else though, I'm happy that the necklaces have taken me back to a long lost source of wonder for me: “I love rocks.”
(Parts of this post were earlier published on SocMed.)