Orphaned jewelry makes room for new pieces

Having worked for many years in the retail fine jewelry biz, I've seen a lot of mishandled and misused jewelry. Spending time trying to restore knotted and tangled chains, dirty diamond rings and scratched pearls, I see these pieces like small dogs in the pound. Sad eyes and snouts pressed against cages, pleading: "Please take care of me."
I could regale you with countless stories of women who will come into the store where I used to work, pulling out one depressing gold or silver or diamond necklace after another from purses, distraught over the fact that the fine jewelry piece she purchased months ago needs to be (eek) cleaned! Or better yet, unknotted because it laid in the bottom of a purse for weeks on end, tousled and tumbled along with that tube of lipstick, a checkbook and a pack of gum. And typically the women are disgusted that the pieces are in such terrible shape-- not disgusted at themselves for treating the items this way, but disgusted at the fact that I cannot create a metal that will withstand the type of treatment a child would give a ten dollar toy. These women are not six-year-old girls pulling out the yarn hair of Eleanor Jean, their beloved Cabbage Patch doll, just for boredom's sake (true story of my childhood). These are women who purchased or received an expensive gift and treat the object as if it was found in a Cracker Jack box.

So, since I try to always take great care of my jewelry, you can understand my disappointment when I lost one of my dolomite stud earrings the other day. To make it better, as I probably will never be able to unorphan the remaining stud, I visited one of my favorite places for local jewelry, Ghost Gallery.

I love visiting here when I have a bright, Sunday afternoon to myself or a dark, gloomy Wednesday even (Tip: 1/2 price bottles of wine on Wednesdays. What a way to end the middle of the week!). The signage on the streets directs you to go behind a picket fence and down a walkway before you find the gallery nestled behind a convenience store on Capitol Hill.

The jewelry collection here keeps expanding and according to the owner, she will be adding more collections coming up as she just signed on several new artists. Sometimes I just like to view what local artists are doing in the area, but today I picked out a ring from Earths Elegance designer Sophie Michele to fill that dolomite stud shaped hole in my heart. The ring, a glass tile surrounded by brass, reminded me of corroded metal. The smooth square tile complemented the bumpy, almost unfinished look of the brass. The tile itself included the rusty red and limescale green layers reminiscent of what you would find on the side of a brick building from the slow drip, drip, drip of a leaky pipe after years of water damage running down the center.

Sitting in the Arabica Lounge and admiring my new ring

I also was introduced to Mara Fitch Jewelry while there. Her pieces had a vintage feel as many of them were created from old vintage items she found around town or at her mother's house even. She plays with scale and length, and some look inspired by rosary beads.

Now, onto Pretty Parlor to see what I could find there. And as soon as I got home, I found a place for the ring and the two pairs of earrings I found at the Pretty Parlor (did I forget to mention those?). There will be no Eleanor Jean treatment of these pieces here.