Ancient Reinvented
says. “I have to restrain myself be-
cause that’s not what people today
want, that tedious decoration on
every possible surface.”
For her gem carvings, she works
with three diff erent lapidaries. Two
are from well-known carving families
based in the German gem carving
center of Idar-Oberstein, one is in
NYC. At fi rst, she took whatever they
had available. These days, there is
more of a collaboration. She tells
them the shapes and animal forms
she’s looking for. They tell her what
material they have available and
recommend certain stones for certain
purposes.
The Right Stuff
When she’s doing granulation, Loren
uses powdered malachite to get the
copper pickle necessary for fus-
ing gold granules — likely what the
ancient Egyptians used for this. So is
the source of her fl ame. She uses “a
very old-style pipe blowtorch,” the
kind often used by German gold-
smiths, she says. One pipe goes into
the propane, another goes into her
mouth.
“You can control the temperature
of the fl ame with your breath, which
is really nice because you have such
a small window where the tempera-
ture is just right for all that malachite
and copper,” she says. “Your breath
can slide under and basically acts like
a solder for the granules. Because
granules adhere at a very specifi c
temperature, the ability to have such
precise control over it is ideal.”
Egyptian and Greek goldsmiths
did something very similar in ancient
“Men seem more
interested in
the alloys and
the different
types of ancient
metalsmithing.
Women are
sometimes
interested in
that but they
tend to be
more into the
aesthetics and
the romance of
the story, the
different gods
or civilizations.”
Rising Sun Post Earrings
22K yellow gold, diamond
Chasing and repoussé form with
granulation
SILLA FISH NECKLACE
22K YELLOW GOLD, ROCK CRYSTAL,
HAND-WOVEN MESH CHAIN, MODIFIED
FROM AN ANCIENT GREEK STYLE CHAIN.
PART OF THE 2018 SILLA COLLECTION
INSPIRED BY THE ANCIENT KOREAN
KINGDOM OF SILLA.
50 LAPIDARY JOURNAL JEWELRY ARTIST