STRIPES Michael Boyd While I have always made jewelry, my background in the arts was in painting and ceramics. The jewelry didn’t take over and become my primary focus until I was in my mid-30’s. My jewelry is a compilation of standard materials and processes aimed at a progressive and innovative use of unusual, rare, and traditional materials. In the collecting and choosing of stones, I am a colorist, and while cutting the stones, I define the form and structure. Using stone as a medium, my goal is to blend and integrate these materials with the metal and create a visual flow. For this cuff, I overlapped and stacked some of the gemstones, creating an overlay of shapes and different areas of texture. I discovered years ago that it was often more economical to buy gemstone beads than to buy cabochons of the same gemstones. I incorporated sapphire beads on the side of the cuff, along with black diamond beads. The wheel-shaped beads of blue chalcedony and sapphire on each end of the cuff have a function; the cuff just rolls on and off the wrist as a result. The layering of the different shades of blue, using sapphire, gem silica, and an opal, creates a quilt-like pattern, broken up by the STRIPES of beads. This functionality and repurposing of the materials is an integral design element in all my work. 26