Imagine that piece of jewelry, and you have imagined the work of Jack and Elizabeth Gualtieri of Zaffiro in Portland, Oregon.
These national award-winning designers believe that beautiful jewelry is artful, precise, and everlasting. Influenced by both ancient and modern styles, from Etruscan era jewels to urban architecture, the husband-and-wife design team creates granulated custom jewelry with colorful gemstones. Their work pushes the boundaries of traditional 22 karat yellow gold granulation, a technique in which tiny gold spheres are fused to the surface of a similar gold alloy. The already complicated process requires utmost precision: If overfired, the gold granules will melt into the surface of the piece; if underfired, they will not adhere properly and fall off. Perfecting the granulation technique is a challenge, but going beyond small variations of the traditional 22 karat yellow gold recipe was unheard of-until now.
Jack and Elizabeth have developed alloys and techniques for granulating in 22 karat rose and white gold, as well as platinum, offering an endless palette of options to customize a piece to their client's taste.
"We wanted to do something fresh-something that would change the way people think about granulation and set us apart from other artists," says Jack. "In the process of developing alloys that would work with granulation, we realized that each color-yellow, rose, and white gold, and platinum-requires learning new techniques."
But those challenges didn't stop Jack and Elizabeth; in fact, they encouraged them to experiment with exciting new color combinations never before seen in granulated jewelry. Today, their line consists of platinum granulation on yellow and rose gold, white-on-white and rose-on-rose looks, and even platinum-on-platinum. And it's constantly evolving. "Now the challenge is to push the level of design and eventually combine all of the colors into one piece," says Jack.
It's this dedication to consistently improving their work and pushing the boundaries of design that brought Jack and Elizabeth together. They were introduced to each other-and each other's work ethic-while working part-time at Goldmaker's, a custom goldsmithing store in Lawrence, Kansas. Both students at the University of Kansas, Elizabeth was pursuing a degree in metalsmithing, and Jack in Industrial Design. By his senior year, Jack had decided to shift to jewelry manufacturing.
The Gualtieris' enchantment with granulation stemmed from Elizabeth's junior year abroad in Italy. "I fell in love with the Etruscan pieces I saw in museums in Florence," she says.
When they both graduated in 1992, they took their relationship-and their careers-and started a life together. They were married a year later and found work together in a design studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that specialized in granulation. Already intrigued by the process, they learned all they could and used that knowledge as the basis to establish their own business in Portland, Oregon.
In their studio today, Jack and Elizabeth perfect their craft with patience, innovation, and passion, dedicated to creating the most exquisite piece of jewelry that the client will cherish. "We want people who purchase our work to not only have an aesthetic connection with it, but some kind of personal connection with the piece," says Elizabeth. "I would hope that the jewelry would be a manifestation of something beautiful inside the person."
Affiliations:
Contemporary Design Group www.cdgjewelers.com
Creative Metal Arts Guild of the Northwest www.cmaguild.org
Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers of America www.ajm-magazine.com
Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts www.asjra.net
 |