Linen

I didn't understand Egyptian cotton, the true appeal of the world's most desired textile, until I was on assignment in New York and had a free Friday to spend at the Met.

There, in the exhibit that created that trip's strongest impression, an intact Egyptian tomb, over 5,000 years old, was recreated. The exhibit stood alone in a glass-encased, air sealed column in the center of the room, and featured all of the original objects found in the tomb, as neatly stacked and arranged as they were when first discovered in the room. All of the funerary objects, from the jars to the figurines to the trunks and chair, were in impeccable (with a little help from the restoration department, though the museum claims not much) condition despite being 5,000 years old. The recreated space was peaceful, clean, orderly, not the least bit morbid or forbidding. The recreated walls were whitewashed, one would assume like the original.

The most amazing part of the exhibit were the linens, stacked exactly as they were found: professionally, neatly folded and--this was the most surprising part--the linens were perfectly preserved, as new-looking and usable as the bright rows of pashminas that lined the tables of the street vendors outside of the museum. The weaving was still completely intact, and the fabrics were barely discolored, still a natural ivory color. The craftsmanship was genius. The linen all served different purposes for the dead, as they had for the living, from clothing to towels to bed coverings. To stand in the presence of these ancient fabrics was one of the more profound experiences of my life. The museum write-up for the linen talked of the experience of the conservationists who handled the linen: each piece is still as light and soft to the touch as a cloud. Excellent craftsmanship still lives and breathes thousands of years later. A bit of the artisan remains in the linen. It's how the dead remain alive.

Garnets

I first fell in love with garnets in the Czech Republic. Prague in October is dark, cold, the buildings mostly of dark stone and concrete, a perfect compliment to the national gem. Of course I went during a different time, in a different world, which is to say 1999. The Euro was not yet instated as national currency, my father-in-law, who paid for our trip was still alive, as was our host, Mila, and the aunt who also stayed in the room next to us. My goal at the time was to "achieve Poland," and so on the way to the Polish border, my in-laws and my husband and me, Mila driving the tiny Soviet-era car, we stopped at the national garnet (granat) jewlery store along the way to the mountains, we met garnets. Though I'd inherited a tiny engagement ring from my grandmother, my husband had never taken me to a jewlery store to pick out a ring, even after 9 years of marriage. Czech garnets are orange in undercolor, not the wishy-washy pink and purple. Set in pale, heavy gold, the jewlery was as austere and darkly handsome as the surrounding Eastern European autumn landscape.

At the national store, I found a 10 carat garnet cabachon in heavy Czech gold surrounded by ten other stones, a wonderfully unique design my father-in-law thought too "Ruskaya" but later, away from the store, everyone (including my inlaws) admired. My father-in-law bought me an overwhelmingly nice garnet tennis bracelet. The store manager pulled out his best treasures, seeing Americans brashly and carelessly spending money. It was that kind of time. The stock market was booming, dot coms brought unprecedented forms of wealth to California and Californians, and we did not yet have children. My teaching jobs allowed me as much time off as I could afford. It was a good time, and I'm sure it showed. My mother-in-law plucked up a pave garnet bangle, a pendant, solid gold chains. Then the masterpiece was brought out, a choker of tiny, polished, faceted garnet gems. It was a million kroners, or whatever the Czech currency was at the time (my father-in-law protected us from fiscal transactions). My husband generously offered to get it to me, but I would not allow him to get me anything that cost a million of anything, even a currency I didn't completely understand. The garnets, tiny, yet of rare gem quality, caught the light and reflected it back as brightly as lights. This is the true magic of gems, that they capture, rather than reflect, light within their brightness. Instead, I picked out a heavy pendant that matched my ring, to which my husband added a heavy solid-gold chain that was opera-length.

But I never really forgot the magic garnet necklace. At my favorite consignment store, which sometimes unwittingly gets beautiful jewelry the clientele don't expect, I found a wonderful necklace I had appraised at a jeweler down the street before I purchased it. It is 2 pieces that together create a longer necklace and apart create a choker and a bracelet. It's strung on wire and features oval-shaped faceted garnets, with only enough occlusions to prove the stones are real, every ten separated by flower-shaped 14k gold beads. The entire piece was $75.

Then, for Christmas 2003, my husband got me a string of ruby beads, not perfect but all very bright, which we had strung and knotted into a necklace. My Japanese friend June, comparing pre-child jewels one evening during her visit, loved this piece best for its brightness. But though the rubies are more valuable than the garnets, and the necklace is a showpiece, the austerity and the dignity of the garnets was somehow missing.

In 2006, a local boutique featured a piece, a pendant strung on a chain of tiny faceted garnets for $500. The price tag alone reignited the search--because I was sure that somewhere I could find the same piece for at least 1/10 the price. I found a decent string of garnet beads on Ebay for $16. They're ruby garnets, without the more exotic orange undertones, but more of a pure red than purple. The stones are handcut, but not brightly faceted; however, each stone is unique and the stones have true fire. The resulting necklace I created from them, a choker hand knotted by a Chinatown jeweler on white cotton, has the original somber appeal of a Czech piece, matching well with a pave garnet Old World double-octagon brooch I inherited from my grandmother. The jeweler and I debated the merits of white cotton (vs. silk, which I finds rots away in no time) for the necklace, but I like the results. She also disagreed on the simplicity of the design, wanting to add other stones and a pendant, thinking the result too plain, but I believe I won her over with the final product. When Melissa O'Brien(islandartstudio.com) and I last made jewelry together, she had strings of bright, tiny ruby and iolite. I was able to pass up the flashing red of the rubies for the cool indigo of the iolite. The piece we made is a bright, reflective thin chain of solid stones, strung on stainless wire coated with gold, with a brass toggle clasp (final price, $40).

I could swear my last garnet necklace has brought me luck. Certainly it successfully completed my need for garnets.

I Love Plastic

Let's hear it for acrylic jewlery. When it's expensive, it's called lucite or resin, when it's not, it's called plastic. It's almost impossible to break; it's clear unless you want it to be; it comes in every color and shape imaginable; it's reasonably priced. In Almodovar's latest film Volver, one character lovingly displays her lost mother's fantastic plastic jewlery collection, circa 1970s, boxed and organized as though by a jeweler.

I have been a fan of acrylic beads since seeing a By Boe necklace on a mother at my son's pre-school, now several years ago. Three window-pane-like beads swung from a short chain lariat on a gold chain--quartz? raw diamonds? aquamarine? They sparkled enticingly. I asked about the stones, and she said they were resin, and it was a costume piece, but so many people loved it, and she'd worn it around Spain to nothing but compliments, and she should get more.

But she would not tell me where she bought the necklace.

And though my son moved on to his big kid school, I kept on looking for one similar, a veritable necklace detective. It was not at local street fairs; it was not in local jewelry stores, or even in more distant ones. At one local street fair, I fortuitously met my friend Melissa O'Brien, a wonderful artisan (www.islandartstudio.com). At the fair we attempted a clumsy version of the necklace in silver with fluorite beads. Then, some months later, a chance visit to my local day spa resulted in--The Necklace. Exact as I had wanted, with 3 fluted, slightly gray, acrylic beads that hung in the same elegant way as the necklace I'd first seen and coveted, from the same chain (gold-filled).

I was in love. I wore the necklace everywhere, all the time, despite a previous history of jewlery snobbery--only real gold and stones, usually handmade, always unusual, often from Europe. I treasured this $23 costume piece the way I did my Tahitian pearls. It went with me to the Academy. And somewhere in that backwater either a hotel maid is happily wearing it now, or, thanks to my husband, it is sitting in a landfill in the eastern United States. It simply disappeared from my room. I searched on hands and knees, looked in trash cans and in pockets. It simply vanished from my room.

When I came back from the Academy, one of my first stops was the same spa. Where they had only 1 not-as-nice but similar piece with acrylic white moons, and the information that the label was By Boe, in New York.

I called By Boe the next business day. To be told by a snooty voice that the necklace was "last season", and the beads were "one of a kind" and they simply could not help me. Which in my opinion was crap.

By cannibalizing several Christmas ornaments (raising eyebrows as I brought home bags of Christmas ornaments), I found similar acrylic beads. More came from internet perusal, as did a similar By Boe necklace from Ebay. And Melissa and I, dissecting the By Boe hanging distances for the 3 bead cascade, put together a number of pieces inspired by The Necklace, with solid gold chains. Enough for holiday presents, and enough to assuage the loss of The Necklace...though I still dream of finding it in a forgotten pocket or suitcase.

I went to Melissa's recent trunk show, and she showed (and sold me) several pieces inspired by my (it is now my) design. I bought a piece with a heavy stick-style chain and clear quartz with a streak of pure gold running through them (gold stone?). I also had her make up a gorgeous Iolite choker for me. The ghost of a design as given birth to a whole new generation of jewlery. Though by now, I am waiting for the next generation of inspiration, finally feeling the "last season" blues.

I'm as inspired by the acrylic beads as I am by jewels. Which I find very inspiring. But more on that later.

After reading The Dream Life of Sukanov, one of the best novels of the century, in my opinion, I fell in love with the idea of the elusive wife's "clanking...turquoise bracelets." Imagining that in Soviet Russia, there were no hard bracelets made of true turquoise (as even basic shell was considered extravagant, I know this because a Russian sold me an overpriced silver and abalone choker at a flea market), I began imagining rows of bracelets in bakelite or lucite, in a wonderful bright aqua. Which I found (opaque lucite ones), being on assignment in Chico, in a funky vintage-esque Chico boutique whose name escapes me. And which are noticed and admired by almost everyone who sees them lining my arms. They are thick, solid, indestructable, meant to last decades. The clanking of my turquoise bracelets is indeed very comforting.

Lately, I love clear accessories. They look so pure, clean, intruiging...solid water, solid air. Clear plastic has many of the qualities that attract people to diamonds. And so the plastic collection grew yesterday, with 2 thick diamond-faceted bangles and 2 clear bangles that are almost imperceptably wavy in shape like Mondrian figures, meant to fit together like bodies. They catch the light and reflect back the skin underneath.

I'm thinking of bright orange bangles, or a necklace, but that seems like too much of a leap, too Miami, but in a bad way, a crazy aunt's castoffs. Plastic must be done with elegance.

Found the Necklace

I found the handmade turquoise bead necklace. The turquoise is not quite as blue, the beads are not quite as huge, it's shorter, but it utilizes the same silver cones and has the same elegant design. It is as close as I will ever come to the magnificent handmade bead necklace I saw in Santa Fe, and I love it. I suspect the turquoise is better quality than that of the earrings I bought from the artist. The beads are pleasingly irregular, each one different. Also, it's strung on wire, much hardier than the Santa Fe traditional carpet string. The price: $25.

The artist is Ebay user gail_ambrocio...and though she is in North Carolina the turquoise is from New Mexico. She makes jewelry for many in the Shawnee and other tribes (including those who sell it as authentic Indian-made), and apparently the head of the Shawnee wears the same necklace. She claims that many of her pieces find their way to Santa Fe with a price tag many hundreds of dollars higher. She charges the range in which she sold to me, but says she is happy the native sellers can make a living with her goods, as her joy is the creation of pieces, not selling them.

Gail's husband blessed the necklace for me before sending it out.

Apparently, outsourcing now affects even authentic native crafts. Ebay offers a great basic education in turquoise, and some good visuals as to what is natural turquoise (3% of stones worldwide), what is treated with a resin to increase hardness (most everything else, as the natural stone is quite chalky), and what is composite turquoise. Some of the world's best turquoise (natural and treated) comes from the Sleeping Beauty mine in New Mexico. The composite (turquoise dust solidified with resin), looks surprisingly natural, not at all plastic-y, like simulated turquoise (plastic). The jeweler I met at Sky City Pueblo, who spent about $5k on authentic native crafts and jewelry, talked about taking a hot needle to his jewlery: a plastic-y smell means the stone is composite.

Many thanks to Gail and her husband.