Can nature make the jewellery?
With the tiniest crystals.
.
They are tiny. Just 1–2 mm long, in delicate shades of clear quartz, amethyst, citrine, prasiolite and smoky quartz. At first glance, they might look like tiny faceted beads — but there is something quite different going on. These are natural crystals, and each one is double terminated: it has grown to a point at both ends. I have always been fascinated by these little crystals. They are so small that you could easily overlook them, yet when they are brought together in a necklace they catch the light with an extraordinary sparkle. And the sparkle isn't something I have created by cutting and polishing the stones. It comes from the crystals themselves.
The sparkle is already there
When we think of sparkling gemstones, we often think of faceting — the carefully calculated cuts made by a lapidary to reflect light back towards the viewer. These crystals are different.
Their tiny natural surfaces have formed as the crystal grew. The
points at either end are not cut into them afterwards; they are part of the crystal's natural structure. The only alteration to each crystal is the small hole that allows it to be threaded. The rest of the necklace is about how I arrange the crystals, bringing their different colours and forms together and allowing them to create the overall effect. Everything that sparkles is natural. That is something I particularly love about them.
A miniature piece of geology
As a geologist, I have encountered crystals like these in different settings.
During fieldwork I have come across naturally formed small and large crystals in rocks but also many lying free in sand or inside geodes where they developed their own beautiful crystal faces.
There is something extraordinary about finding a crystal in that setting. It is not altered by human hand. It isn't even necessarily something that was meant to be seen. It simply grew. Its shape and colour records the conditions in which it formed, and its surfaces are the result of the slow processes of geology rather than human design. These tiny double-terminated crystals have a sense of being complete in themselves. They were never made to become jewellery.
From geological object to jewellery
This is one of the things I love most about working with natural materials. I don't always want to transform them. Sometimes the most interesting thing is to interfere as little as possible and allow the material to remain itself and tell its own story. With these crystals, I am not trying to improve upon their natural sparkle. Instead, I choose the crystals, design the arrangement and bring their different colours in harmony. The necklaces are, in a sense, a frame for something that was already beautiful and fascinating. And perhaps that is an important part of making. We are so accustomed to adding, changing, cutting, polishing and perfecting that sometimes it is worth taking a step back and allowing nature to do the work and see the beauty in what is already here. There are moments when the best thing we can do is simply let the beauty of nature speak for itself. The crystals were formed by nature, I simply gave them a way to become jewellery and to speak of a way to connect to a much longer and deeper story.
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