Woo hoo! Summerized jewelry is now available at Fiat Lux, a great little boutique in the Mission/Castro neighborhood. Fiat Lux is gem-like little store, with a very well curated selection of local designs. My jewelry is in great company.
Fiat Lux is located at 218 Church Street, between Market and 15th.
My new diamond pendant is on sale there too! Here's a quick snapshot of it. I'll get a better one up soon.
I'm very excited to announce that Summerized earrings are now available at Love & Luxe, a fabulous jewelry store in San Francisco's Mission district (1169 Valencia Street at 23rd).
Betsy, the co-owner and creative director, is a talented jewelry designer, and has created a very well-curated boutique. I'm happy to be included.
She shares my interest in diamonds, as evidenced by this greeting card for sale at the counter...
And this amazing, massive metal diamond in the window display!
I believe they're open Tuesday through Saturday.
So I put the Mutant Crystal prototypes on chains, in a very temporary fashion. I wanted to see how they worked as pendants. Honestly, in person, the large scale is a little too Flavor Flav. But only a little.
And as Meredith pointed out, the pendant should have a "back," and that back should be flat so it can lay comfortably against the skin. I'm excited to rework this a bit, and to wear it!
I've been playing in Rhino with some forms reminiscent of the Flower of Life, or Seed of Life -- thinking about how these translate into three dimensions. They're still in progress, but I think the wireframes are interesting. My diamond earring is in the file to help me keep scale in mind.
Recently, I was chatting with Mark Bloomfield, the founder of Electrobloom, on the Shapeways forum. He's got a great new product -- 3d printed jewelry in flower designs that are customizable with attachable charms. It's a really fun idea that has lots of possibility for expansion.
I've been preparing to approach some retailers with my Diamond Wireframe Earrings, as well as some other new designs. One part of this is to find a reliable way to get the earrings assembled. I dropped some components (my 3d printed designs, plus the findings) off to a woman at a local bead and jewelry shop, for her to put together. I picked them up last week, and she'd had trouble putting them together, because of the (apparently) too-small holes in my designs, and the janky jumprings I'd gotten from one of the major online shops for hobbyist beaders.
I increased the size of the holes in the 3d printed designs, so the earrings will be easier to assemble.
Also, she thought the quality of my findings (hardware) wasn't great in general. I agreed; the gold-plated hooks I've been wearing a while have worn down to their original silver color -- not good. Also, the jumprings look sloppy and badly cut. But I wasn't sure where to find better findings.
Meredith to the rescue! Meredith and I went to Cranbrook together; she studied Metals there, creating amazing conceptual pieces, and worked as an expert metalsmith and jeweler for years. She recommended Rio Grande as selling high quality components for professional jewelers. I placed an order and am interested to see if the quality looks better. The price is certainly higher, as I'm ordering sterling silver and gold filled, rather than silver or gold plated. But I really want to make a premium product that people can wear and enjoy for a long time.
If anyone else knows of a great source of findings, I'd love to hear about it.
Mutant Crystals arrived in the mail today from Shapeways!
I drew these mutant crystals in Rhino recently... In addition to exploring more "perfect" and refined geometric shapes like my diamonds, I'm interested in "imperfect" ones like these. They have a more hand-drawn sensibility (even though they were entirely designed in CAD).
I printed out one version comprised of just the structural lines. My friend Michael was just commenting that it looks like some kind of secret military spacecraft, and that he'd like a tchotchke for his desk shaped like it. Maybe I'll make one!
And I printed out a version with some of the facets "shaded" with lines. I made sure the lines were kind of irregular, like someone was drawing them by hand. I love the idea of something "handdrawn" coming out of the 3d printer. My friend Andrew thinks they'd make good Christmas ornaments too. I agree.
One of the "shaded" ones has a loop at the top, so I can try it out as a pendant. The other doesn't; I wanted to see if maybe the chain would look better going through the structure.
I could also see making a necklace out of multiples of these irregular shapes (designing additional ones) and having them joined end to end.
These models are made of shapes that are 1mm thick -- they're pretty thin and delicate, for this scale of a model. They flex and bend a some as you hold them. Though the "shading" makes them a bit stronger. I don't know whether I should make them thicker for use as a necklace or not. Guess I'll find out
how delicate they are by wearing them.
A couple weeks ago, I had just gotten some orders for black Wireframe Diamond Earrings. I was worried I wouldn't be able to fulfill the orders in time -- my incoming order of black diamonds was late, because the machine my usual supplier uses to make them was down.
So I ordered some diamonds from Moddler, a small 3-D printing shop located right in San Francisco. Moddler's price per diamond is quite a bit more than my usual supplier's, but he can produce an identical product in 2 days! And I can just hop onto Muni to pick them up -– which is quite an advantage when you have a deadline.
Moddler is located in a nice brick warehousey building. John, the owner, is very friendly and helpful, and makes sure every piece is perfect -- a one person business makes for great quality control.
As you can see, in the photo above, much of Moddler's business appears to be printing of avatars.
The space has great light.
You can see his 3D printer in the background here.
Printing with Moddler was a really good experience, and I would do it again.
w00t!! Wireframe Diamond Earrings are featured on Daily Candy's 34 Gifts for Girls guide today. Love it.
Here's a very rough mockup of a new earring design I'm working on. I'm pretty excited about it. The main "stone" is of course fashioned after an emerald cut, and the others are "pearls." And looking at it on my ear, it has a kind of Victorian feel, but the 3D wireframe aspect definitely puts a different kind of spin on it. In black it's subtle yet surprising.
