I found Marc Choyt + Helen Chantler's ideas interesting because the jewelry company's social activism components + the Fair, Responsible, Ecological system, a unique concept in the industry, is so different from the mainstream + I believe they are transforming jewelry marketing in a socially responsible way + they may inspire others to follow their footsteps.
Useful links:
www.fairjewelry.org
www.celticjewelry.com
www.circlemanifesto.com
www.madisondialogue.org
www.communitymining.org
www.responsiblejewellery.com
www.ethicalmetalsmiths.org
www.fairtradegems.com
www.clearconsciencejewelry.org
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Engagement Rings
This is what I found interesting from ABC News @
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/popup?id=4239795 about engagement rings, I mean, the really pricey ones.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/popup?id=4239795 about engagement rings, I mean, the really pricey ones.
The Mind Of The Market
The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics by Michael Shermer is about the evolutionary roots of our economic behavior + he pulls together ideas from biology, psychology and neuroscience + I liked this book.
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
But the untrammeled imagination of the jeweler chose even more often themes and figures from ancient mythology. Of all the gems provided by nature large baroque pearls seem to have been made especially for the satisfaction of the sixteenth century goldsmith. In their strange and irregular formation he saw fantastic resemblances to varied and innumerable objects such as the torso of a man, the white breast of a woman, the body of a swan, or the bubbling crest of a wave.
Having decided what his baroque pearl looked like, he proceeded to complete the picture by adding its missing parts. Head, arms, wings or whatever was necessary were developed in gold, enamel and gems. Pearls naturally held suggestion of the sea, and mythology teemed with tritons, mermen, nereids, sirens, and fabulous monsters of the deep. The imaginative jeweler delighted in them.
One of the most extraordinary pendants of the period represents a triton whose body is a single baroque pearl, the head and arms of white enamel, and the tail of brilliant green, blue, and yellow enamel encrusted at intervals with gems. In one hand he holds a weapon and in the other the mask of a satyr, by way of shield. Three large pendant pearls dangle from this marvelously wrought creature.
A favorite design was a ship with masts, rigging, forecastle, cabin, even the ship’s lantern and sometimes the mariners, all complete in gold, enamel, and gems. As may readily be understood, many of these jewels required close inspection, so minute and intricate was their detail.
Pendants were used as containers, hinged cases for the relic of a saint, miniature of a sweetheart, perfume, cosmetic, bejeweled toothpick and what not. It is impossible to list the infinite variety of these jewels.
The Renaissance jeweler even impinged on the province of the sculptor and fashioned his precious materials into statuettes not intended to be worn. Some of them are set on standards whose base is seal, but others disdain utility and stand (or fall) on their right to be regarded as objects of art. There are delightfully absurd specimens of the jeweler’s efforts in this direction at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among them is a Roman senator bedecked with diamonds and emeralds; manfully he expands his chest, composed of a single baroque pearl. There is something slightly amiss with the anatomy of that chest—but still it does surprisingly suggest a human torso, especially considering the fact that it was modeled by an oyster.
Diverting also is the little brown negress, carved from ambergris. The figure is nude except for necklace, bracelets and head ornaments of gold and gems. While ambergris is not really a gem material, it was, by reason of its fragrance and supposed curative powers, so highly prized that it is usually listed as one of the ‘marine gems.’
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
But the untrammeled imagination of the jeweler chose even more often themes and figures from ancient mythology. Of all the gems provided by nature large baroque pearls seem to have been made especially for the satisfaction of the sixteenth century goldsmith. In their strange and irregular formation he saw fantastic resemblances to varied and innumerable objects such as the torso of a man, the white breast of a woman, the body of a swan, or the bubbling crest of a wave.
Having decided what his baroque pearl looked like, he proceeded to complete the picture by adding its missing parts. Head, arms, wings or whatever was necessary were developed in gold, enamel and gems. Pearls naturally held suggestion of the sea, and mythology teemed with tritons, mermen, nereids, sirens, and fabulous monsters of the deep. The imaginative jeweler delighted in them.
One of the most extraordinary pendants of the period represents a triton whose body is a single baroque pearl, the head and arms of white enamel, and the tail of brilliant green, blue, and yellow enamel encrusted at intervals with gems. In one hand he holds a weapon and in the other the mask of a satyr, by way of shield. Three large pendant pearls dangle from this marvelously wrought creature.
A favorite design was a ship with masts, rigging, forecastle, cabin, even the ship’s lantern and sometimes the mariners, all complete in gold, enamel, and gems. As may readily be understood, many of these jewels required close inspection, so minute and intricate was their detail.
Pendants were used as containers, hinged cases for the relic of a saint, miniature of a sweetheart, perfume, cosmetic, bejeweled toothpick and what not. It is impossible to list the infinite variety of these jewels.
The Renaissance jeweler even impinged on the province of the sculptor and fashioned his precious materials into statuettes not intended to be worn. Some of them are set on standards whose base is seal, but others disdain utility and stand (or fall) on their right to be regarded as objects of art. There are delightfully absurd specimens of the jeweler’s efforts in this direction at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among them is a Roman senator bedecked with diamonds and emeralds; manfully he expands his chest, composed of a single baroque pearl. There is something slightly amiss with the anatomy of that chest—but still it does surprisingly suggest a human torso, especially considering the fact that it was modeled by an oyster.
Diverting also is the little brown negress, carved from ambergris. The figure is nude except for necklace, bracelets and head ornaments of gold and gems. While ambergris is not really a gem material, it was, by reason of its fragrance and supposed curative powers, so highly prized that it is usually listed as one of the ‘marine gems.’
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
According to a great historian, Dr S R Gardiner, much of the best literature of the early nineteenth century was inspired by the ‘better side’ of the French Revolution, ‘its preference of the natural to the artificial, and of humble to the exalted’. This same preference is clearly visible in the art of George Morland (1763-1804).
Morland, who was born in London on June 26, 1763, was the son and the grandson of artists. His father, Henry Robert Morland (1730-97), discovered his son’s talent at an early age, and proceeded to force it with unparalleled avarice and tyranny, so that his unfortunate son had no life at all outside the garret in which he was kept earning money for the needy household. George Morland began drawing when he was three, at the age of ten he was exhibiting in the Royal Academy; but while his hand and his eyes were trained to accomplish remarkable feats of painting, the rest of his education was absolutely neglected, so that he grew up empty-headed, with a great longing to escape the paternal tyranny and be able to enjoy himself.
Inevitably, when he did at last break away from his father, he plunged into dissipation, and divided his time between drinking and painting. In 1786 he married and pulled himself together for a time, but he was so fond of his liberty that he refused an offer from Romney of £300 a year for three years to be his assistant, and preferred to ramble about the country painting rustic scenes and spending too much time and money in alehouses.
For a little while, before his health was ruined by drink, he was in easy circumstances, for his paintings of domestic scenes and farm life were exceedingly popular, and he was better known to the people than any of his august contemporaries. All his principal works were engraved, and these colored prints after Morland’s pictures found their way into many humble homes. It is probable that his well known painting at the National Gallery, ‘The Interior of a Stable’, was painted about 1791, which would nearly coincide with the period of Morland’s greatest prosperity. The stable is said to be that of the White Lion Inn at Paddington, where Morland once had as many as eight horses, but partly owing to his drinking habits and partly owing to his unbusinesslike methods his prosperity soon dwindled.
Nothwithstanding his dissipation—and a day rarely passed in which he was not drunk—he was not idle, for Morland was the author of four thousand pictures and of a still greater number of drawings. But his intemperance and his dependence on dealers gradually improverished his art, and the man who had a genuine love and understanding of countrylife, and ought to have been one of the world’s greatest rustic painters, sank into ‘pot boiling’, painting what the dealers wanted instead of what he wanted to do himself. His terms were four guineas a day—and his drink! Morland had got into the state when he ‘didn’t care,’ though in his sober moments he must have seen the irony and impropriety of a man of his character painting Hogarthian moralities like ‘The Fruits of Early Industry,’ ‘The Effects of Extravagance and Idleness,’ and so forth. Indeed, these in his own day were Morland’s most popular works, and though some of them show the degeneration of his drawing, and his carelessness in their ‘wooly’ rendering of form, even to the end a little painting more carefully handled and jewel-like in color will now and again show what a great painter he might have been. His last miserable years, 1800-4, were spent in debtor’s prison, yet even here, with a brandy bottle always handy, he was still industrious, and for one dealer alone during this period he painted one hundred and ninety two pictures. At the early age of forty one George Morland died, completely wrecked, the victim of his own want of education and of roguish employers.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
2
According to a great historian, Dr S R Gardiner, much of the best literature of the early nineteenth century was inspired by the ‘better side’ of the French Revolution, ‘its preference of the natural to the artificial, and of humble to the exalted’. This same preference is clearly visible in the art of George Morland (1763-1804).
Morland, who was born in London on June 26, 1763, was the son and the grandson of artists. His father, Henry Robert Morland (1730-97), discovered his son’s talent at an early age, and proceeded to force it with unparalleled avarice and tyranny, so that his unfortunate son had no life at all outside the garret in which he was kept earning money for the needy household. George Morland began drawing when he was three, at the age of ten he was exhibiting in the Royal Academy; but while his hand and his eyes were trained to accomplish remarkable feats of painting, the rest of his education was absolutely neglected, so that he grew up empty-headed, with a great longing to escape the paternal tyranny and be able to enjoy himself.
Inevitably, when he did at last break away from his father, he plunged into dissipation, and divided his time between drinking and painting. In 1786 he married and pulled himself together for a time, but he was so fond of his liberty that he refused an offer from Romney of £300 a year for three years to be his assistant, and preferred to ramble about the country painting rustic scenes and spending too much time and money in alehouses.
For a little while, before his health was ruined by drink, he was in easy circumstances, for his paintings of domestic scenes and farm life were exceedingly popular, and he was better known to the people than any of his august contemporaries. All his principal works were engraved, and these colored prints after Morland’s pictures found their way into many humble homes. It is probable that his well known painting at the National Gallery, ‘The Interior of a Stable’, was painted about 1791, which would nearly coincide with the period of Morland’s greatest prosperity. The stable is said to be that of the White Lion Inn at Paddington, where Morland once had as many as eight horses, but partly owing to his drinking habits and partly owing to his unbusinesslike methods his prosperity soon dwindled.
Nothwithstanding his dissipation—and a day rarely passed in which he was not drunk—he was not idle, for Morland was the author of four thousand pictures and of a still greater number of drawings. But his intemperance and his dependence on dealers gradually improverished his art, and the man who had a genuine love and understanding of countrylife, and ought to have been one of the world’s greatest rustic painters, sank into ‘pot boiling’, painting what the dealers wanted instead of what he wanted to do himself. His terms were four guineas a day—and his drink! Morland had got into the state when he ‘didn’t care,’ though in his sober moments he must have seen the irony and impropriety of a man of his character painting Hogarthian moralities like ‘The Fruits of Early Industry,’ ‘The Effects of Extravagance and Idleness,’ and so forth. Indeed, these in his own day were Morland’s most popular works, and though some of them show the degeneration of his drawing, and his carelessness in their ‘wooly’ rendering of form, even to the end a little painting more carefully handled and jewel-like in color will now and again show what a great painter he might have been. His last miserable years, 1800-4, were spent in debtor’s prison, yet even here, with a brandy bottle always handy, he was still industrious, and for one dealer alone during this period he painted one hundred and ninety two pictures. At the early age of forty one George Morland died, completely wrecked, the victim of his own want of education and of roguish employers.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Coffee Update
Kenneth Davids reviews Colombian coffee lots for its magic mix and match of balance and completeness + other viewpoints @ http://www.coffeereview.com/article.cfm?ID=141
Useful link:
www.juanvaldez.com
Useful link:
www.juanvaldez.com
Fire Obsidian
The experts (using analytical instruments) believe fire obsidian colors are due to the result of light reflecting off thin layers within the material that contain nanometric magnetite crystals + the combination of layer thickness/difference in refractive index causes optical interference giving rise to the spectacular colors.
Useful link:
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/9084
Useful link:
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/9084
Global Economy
According to Warren Buffett, the head of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc, the U.S. dollar will continue to slide because of the huge current account deficit (trade deficit) + force feeding a couple billion a day to the rest of the world is inconsistent with a stable dollar + if the U.S. current account deficit keeps running at current levels, the dollar is certain to be worth less in 5 or 10 years from now against other major currencies such as the Euro and the Canadian dollar + many of the banks who marketed complex investments (the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end) which have now crashed are bearing much of the fallout + the ripple effect is dramatic (once somebody says the emperor has no clothes, people start looking at the individuals around them to see whether they've got some of the same/as I've said in the past, it's only when the tide goes out that you find who has been swimming naked/well, the tide has gone out and it has not been a pretty sight) + as for a recession, the United States will do very well over time, despite setbacks such as wars and market bubbles, the country goes forward.
I believe his views are perceived as NFL(near flawless) in the business world + his business operating system is also unique (favors companies with relatively simple businesses, strong management, consistent earnings, good returns on equity, and little debt).
The gem and jewelry sector may have a lot to learn from Warren Buffet.
I believe his views are perceived as NFL(near flawless) in the business world + his business operating system is also unique (favors companies with relatively simple businesses, strong management, consistent earnings, good returns on equity, and little debt).
The gem and jewelry sector may have a lot to learn from Warren Buffet.
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