Stone Inlay Jewelry Using Fragments: The Tesserae Collection

One of the Tesserae doubles earrings, featuring two interconnected stones

It started from the build-up of years of making inlays: cutting out little pieces of turquoise for a bracelet, or malachite for drop earrings.

Every time I cut into a stone slab for my jewelry projects, I end up with tiny leftover pieces—too small to use for my inlays, but too beautiful to just throw away!

So into emptied cashew jars they went, slowly accumulating until I accidentally spilled a jar on my table one day. Seeing the pieces strewn in a kaleidoscope of color, I knew then what they wanted to be—mini mosaics to bring out the beauty in even the tinies pieces of stone.

The challenge was to pick out a balanced color palette of varied blue and green stones in a way that felt cohesive, but also not too controlled—somewhat arranging placement before putting them together, while also allowing an aspect of randomness take over in their creation (which is not typical in my figurative inlay jewelry).

*****also using negative space between stones, which is a little different from my other pieces where stones are cut to fit together tightly.

When the mosaics are first finished, there is a geological cragginess about them until the surface is cut and polished flush, revealing a mosaic-like surface of cool colors.

What starred out as a bit of an experiment changed how I see material in my studio, seeing the potential for beautiful creations in even the tiniest of stones. Because who knows? They could speak up more when surrounded by support.