{"id":17569,"date":"2012-12-07T17:03:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T21:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=17569"},"modified":"2012-12-07T17:03:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T21:03:58","slug":"resolved-keep-track-of-important-dates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/resolved-keep-track-of-important-dates\/","title":{"rendered":"Resolved: Keep Track of Important Dates"},"content":{"rendered":"

My non-New Year’s Resolution<\/a> — going into effect immediately — is to better organize my calendar. I tend to keep too much information in my head or in email, thinking, “There’s no way I can forget about something as important as that!” Then, of course, I miss or almost miss the event. It happened with a Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden last month<\/a>; fortunately, at 6 p.m. I realized my tickets were for that night instead of the following night. I wasn’t so lucky with Christie’s annual Ancient Jewelry auction. Today, I thought, “Isn’t that coming up?” only to discover it was this past Wednesday. I’d even saved a Wall Street Journal article since October <\/a>to remind myself!<\/p>\n

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A Roman ring from Les Enluminures Gallery. Photo via the Wall Street Journal.<\/p><\/div>\n

I wasn’t planning to buy any jewelry, but I did want to look. As I’ve said before, my own jewelry designs<\/a> are frequently inspired by medieval or antique pieces. That’s part of why I started my line! I loved the patina, detail and symbolism of ancient jewelry, but I worried it would be too delicate to wear, even though buyers quoted in that Wall Street Journal story say they do wear theirs. My bigger issue is that I usually like the concept of the old pieces more than their actual appearance. We now have superior gem-cutting and jewelry-making technology, so we can take the concepts a lot further. As a result, when I do a piece that’s inspired by the past, I aim to make it better than — or at least different from — the original. For instance, this is an original Phoenician swivel ring sold by Christie’s in 2011:<\/p>\n

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Click for photo source.<\/p><\/div>\n

You can see the mechanism for the swivel action on each side of the center stone. That was also true of the Egyptian swivel rings that I admired in the Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>. That detail made me want to design a ring in which the mechanism remained completely hidden. I succeeded! No one has ever guessed my 18K-gold Hathor ring<\/a> has a center that swivels from turquoise to carnelian. Here’s the turquoise side.<\/p>\n

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Click to see the Hathor ring on my website.<\/p><\/div>\n

This photo shows the center gem mid-swivel …<\/p>\n

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There’s carnelian on the other side of the turquoise.<\/p><\/div>\n

… and here is the ring with the carnelian side up.<\/p>\n

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Voila!<\/p><\/div>\n

Museums and books give me more inspiration than I can act on, but it would be fun to see what turns up at a sale anyway. The Wall Street Journal article says that New York’s Winter Antiques Show is another good source of ancient jewelry, so let’s put that on my calendar now: January 25 to February 3, 2013<\/a>. <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My non-New Year’s Resolution — going into effect immediately — is to better organize my calendar. I tend to keep too much information in my head or in email, thinking, “There’s no way I can forget about something as important as that!” Then, of course, I miss or almost miss the event. It happened with…<\/p>\n

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