Posted 3 years ago
FridaysJoy
(14 items)
I bought the Deco-era green beads, which I suspect are uranium glass, at auction, and they came to me as a short choker that hid fully half of its marvelous opalescent elements behind the neckline.
With a re-creation clearly envisioned, I restrung the exceptional tri-part beads, swapping their original sandwiched cast-glass centers for vintage 1920’s German-cut quartz crystals, and spaced them with trios of more German-cuts and new 3mm Czech crystals the same green as the Deco jobs. They are graduated: rock crystals at ends are 2mm by 5mm; whole triplet at center is 18.5mm in diameter, 19.25mm in length.
These are some of the most remarkable beads it has ever been my privilege to work with. Their color, radioactive or not, is simply sublime; one friend said it reminded her of the fluorescent jellyfish at the aquarium. (Google “Live Jelly Cam Monterey Aquarium” for a lark.)
Triplet beads are few and far between, but ones of this size, much less this color, are exceedingly rare. Their incarnation as a choker spanned a lifetime—if these are American-made, they were cast sometime in the 20’s-30’s—and now they are updated, reborn, and resplendently opera length at 29” (73.66cm) long, with a vintage sterling clasp. Not that I’ll ever need to fiddle with it; the beads slip nicely over my head.
Out of the literally thousands of necklaces I've designed or restyled over the last fifty-five years, this is without question tops among the most memorable and unique. True confession: I made these up for sale, when I opened my shop in 2019, but coveted them so much that I soon pulled them—so I could wear the necklace myself. Didn’t take it off for days.
