Step right this way... Each month a group of jewelry artists use their blogs to get together online and answer the same question - each in their own way. This month the topic is:
What's the most treasured piece of jewelry that you personally own - not your own work.
I think my *most* treasured piece of jewelry is my Mother's gold charm bracelet. I remember as a child that it would tinkle and sparkle and shine... It looked very grown up to me. There were all kinds of beautiful charms on it. It was very full - hardly any room for more.
There was a bell with the rim strung with tiny pearls that my Father gave as an anniversary gift, a tiny naked, curly headed child standing on a baroque pearl and holding a mirror to represent "Monday's child is fair of face" (I was born on a Monday), and many others that my memory has locked in such a hidden box that I can't remember.
My Mother was always cleaning out, getting rid, trading in... And at some point she began to sell the charms so she could buy new, more modern ones. The bell and the child are two that I was sad to see weren't there by the time I inherited the bracelet. But luckily I do have memories of the way those charms swung on my Mother's wrist, the bracelet and one of my favorite pictures of my Mother wearing it.
Estelle Hart Freed
Ivan Graham Freed - These tags were replacements for two identically engraved charms. He told me once what they represented, but I was young and foolish and didn't write it down - so of course now I've forgotten
Tree of Life - Perhaps to represent all three of her children?
I used to wear the bracelet and it's remaining charms all the time. And then I started making silver jewelry and the gold went into a new hidden box. But every now and then I get it out and look at all my treasured connections to childhood.
Take a look at the other carney's blogs to see their favorite jewels:
I'm leaving for the day - but their blogs will have links to everyone else's as they are written.
