A Family Story Expressed Through Custom Jewelry
Jenny Kapella is a new client that found me through a Google search, even though she lives only a mile away. I was very happy to know my website and social media efforts led her to me and I was even happier to collaborate with her on this meaningful project. She wrote a lovely account of her experience working with me.
“My mother has several pieces of jewelry that have great sentimental significance and were either worn out or never worn. Lainey patiently worked with me to repurpose them to create timeless pendants that paid tribute to our family and would suit each of my nieces. Lainey was able to recycle some of the jewelry and even dental gold to help pay for the new work.
Leah is my oldest niece. She has a passion for mathematics and tech. The “emerald” in her pendant comes from her great grandmother’s wedding ring, one of the circles in the pendant is her great grandfather’s wedding ring. The gold spiral represents the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical formula that describes curves found frequently in nature.
My mother was an artist, her medium was fiber and weaving. Melanie shares her creativity and passion for living things. The design of Melanie’s pendant is lifted from one of mom’s weavings which depicted red blood cells. The bale of her pendant and each of the others came from the worn out Victorian wedding band of her great-great grandmother. The diamond and garnet cluster came from an earring that belonged to the same great great grandmother, the partner to that earring disappeared years ago and I am so glad it could be repurposed. The citrine is from a ring my mother designed, but the style was very heavy and would not have been worn by me or my nieces.
All of my nieces studied piano, but only Caroline continues to enjoy playing. My mother never played piano, but she did sing beautifully and performed in community musical theater. For Caroline’s pendant we chose a treble clef design, using a pale blue topaz from another ring and tiny diamonds from a tie clip that belonged to my dad.
My nieces don’t have much memory of my mother before dementia took over her personality, but in these designs a little bit of her extraordinary creativity is preserved. Thank you Lainey for your incredible patience and sensitivity.”
-Jenny Kapella, Atlanta, GA.
Designs by Lainey Papageorge, articulated by Tim Shoemaker, Atlanta, GA 2019
