Beaming
Tokyo jewelry district, new pearl earrings, and signet rings
I spent a sunny late Friday afternoon wandering through Okachimachi, Tokyo’s jewelry district. The area has many tool and supply wholesalers and is the preeminent neighborhood for Tokyo-based jewelers.
I’ve been to the neighborhood twice before for targeted, short visits, but this was the first time that I spent a few hours exploring. It felt great this time around to actually know what to look for! I bought a handful of new tools, some brass rings for future engraving practice, and a decent number of gemstones.
My gemstone shopping experience was particularly pleasant. The shopkeeper, an elderly Japanese man, kindly showed me a variety of stones and taught me how to handle and examine them properly. Stones add so much visual interest to jewelry pieces, so I can’t wait to incorporate them more. I have a few gold-only pieces in the works, but after those are wrapped I plan to focus on stone-centric pieces for the foreseeable future.
New earrings
These pearl hoops are my favorite jewelry piece I’ve designed and made yet. When you hold them in your hand, they have substance.
The original version of these hoops are plain gold. I added a large Akoya pearl to the inside of the hoop to bring a subtle new detail. I like how the pearl is nestled inside the piece - the earring is elegant, but a bit undone and raw with the texture of the gold.
Practically, setting pearls is pretty straight forward, albeit unforgiving to errors. I soldered a gold post to the earring then added jeweler’s epoxy to the post before inserting it into the half-drilled pearl. Pearls are delicate and easy to scratch, so adding them should be done as late in the process as possible (for example, you don’t want to polish with motorized tools around the pearl if you don’t have to). Additionally, once the epoxied post enters the pearl there is no turning back. You have to be confident that the post is securely on the piece and ready for the pearl.
I made these earrings as a one-of-a-kind statement piece. I have two more of the same pearls but am saving them for different designs.
Current projects
The main projects I worked on this week are a simple cabochon bezel set pendant and two pinky signet rings.
This is my first time fabricating a bezel setting for a stone. Generally, I find working in metal to be easier than working with wax, at least easier to get a clean design and finish. I sawed and filed a little design in the back of the pendant to make the piece more interesting. If you look at pendants, you’ll see that often a portion of the back is removed in order to a) make the stone easier to move in/out when making the piece; b) allow light through the stone if it is translucent; or c) decrease the weight of the piece.
The two pinky signet rings I started are basic shapes that I can later add designs to. I carved them using a soft jeweler’s wax and will further refine them after casting them in silver. I’ll then bring them back to wax to add intricacies before casting final pieces.
Recent inspirations
I started reading “The Pleasures of Japanese Literature” by Donald Keene, a prominent scholar of premodern Japanese literature and culture. The book discusses Japanese taste and aesthetics in poetry, literature, and illustration.
He explains four key principles of the Japanese sense of beauty as: suggestion, irregularity, simplicity, and perishability. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the historical context of Japanese art and culture.