Old Souls
Carolyn’s gold jewels have a
velvety matte fi nish, identical to
the surface of a 24K gold nugget
or treasure unearthed from a tomb,
she says, and achieved by depletion
gilding. An acid wash eats away the
alloy (copper and silver) in 22K gold,
revealing the top microns of pure
24K gold surface. “This is what setsmy jewelry apart from other design-
ers’,” she says. “Nobody else I know
of makes a fi nish like mine. Gurhan
comes close, but his fi nish is not as
matte.”
Lilly and Carolyn both feature
snakes and insects in their jewels,
presented in a way that is both
cleaner and more symmetrical thanJudith KaufmanNecklace
Jasper, diamonds, rubies, 22K goldPHOTO: COURTESY JUDITH KAUFMAN“There’s some-
thing about the
dreamy feeling
you get thinking
about who was
making it and how
it was worn.”She was obsessed by Egyptian
antiquities long before that. Visit-
ing museums with her parents as
a child, Carolyn discovered pieces
worn by the Pharaoh Ramses II. “I
subsequently modeled several of
my bestselling designs after them,”
she admits. “I felt a bit like a fraud
that my Ramses ring, the piece I
produced more than any other, by
popular request, was the only design
I ever totally knocked off .”
Ancient
Embellishments
Carolyn moved to Bali just as she was
setting up her jewelry design busi-
ness, giving her access to Balinese
goldsmiths trained in ancient tech-
niques such as fi ne granulation. She
has seen research suggesting those
techniques began in Mesopotamia
and spread to Egypt, then through
the Middle East and into India, and
from there to Indonesia and Bali. “So
I know there is a direct line back to
the jewelry of my childhood fascina-
tion,” she says.
The embellishment techniques
her goldsmiths use — granulation,
repoussé, fi ligree — were all devel-
oped thousands of years ago in Asia
Minor, she says. That alone imparts
the fl avor of ancient artifacts. “But I
also like to use included gems, which
have an antique feel and soulful char-
acter,” she says.58 LAPIDARY JOURNAL JEWELRY ARTIST