TRANSFORMATION Pamela Froman When I was given the theme of TRANSFORMATION, my first thought was to do a piece of jewelry that started as a necklace with removable parts to transform into a pair of earrings. As I started sketching my ideas, my 11-year-old son, Hudson, asked me what I was doing and I explained to him my challenge and ideas. He knew I loved working with opals and thought I should do something with an opal transforming in some way. When he saw my face light up, after hearing his idea, he got even more excited and we started brainstorming. He came up with the thought of an opal flower transforming from a seed to a beautiful flower. I sketched out many flower designs with different layouts and let him approve the one he liked best, which included not one, not two, but three opals. Once the detailed drawing was finished, it was a challenge to find the right opal for the seed. I wanted something that was rough with a little bit of opal coming through and of course it took months to find the right one! Once I found the ‘seed’ opal, the other two opals were much easier to find. After all three of my opals were selected, I wanted to work with the textures for the petals and vine, which is something I love to do. I knew I needed to include some sort of movement in this piece, so after the texture was perfect, that was my next challenge. Once I figured it out, I laid everything on top of my drawing, and it all came together, a beautiful fantasy piece depicting an opal blooming like a flower from a rocky seed into a platinum-petaled blossom! 48