This is a rather nice photo of an undeniably hideous necklace that I gave long term loaned to someone, with the caveat that should she tire of it, to please give it back. Which this summer she did. Obviously I had a much higher opinion of the piece then than I do now, as my current interest in getting it back extends only to documenting it for the website.

Necklace with dangles—17" excluding dangles, of which center is 2.5"; central lampwork bead, approx 15mm. Indian lampwork, aquamarine, quartz, green aventurine, some sort of mystery dyed stone, czech pressed, rocailles, sterling (metal) beads & findings throughout; strung on tigertail ometime before 1996... There's a pair of matching earrings I didn't bother to document. photographed 17sep22:20:45; Sony A7c/sony 90mm macro with godox manual flash, f/6.3, 1/160s, ev 0, ISO 100

Obviously I made this before I learned to make glass beads myself, and because of intense time pressures, the lampwork is very sloppily trailed, though the beads themselves are nicely formed, albeit solid. —It's so old it's actually strung on tigertail, and so ugly I can't decide whether to take it apart for the silver, or donate it to the local resale shop in the hopes someone will enjoy wearing it.

Or they can take it apart to harvest the silver.

So why document this hideousity? Well...the very first necklace I designed myself, which has long since been lost, was this 3 dangle design—it was, IIRC, aquamarine chips, possibly smokey quartz chips, and MOP hearts. I was very proud of it. Of course I'm now going on a highly imperfect memory some 30 plus years old, but that hazy image was of a piece, while clearly made by a beginner, that showed promise.

This one does have decent rhythm in the way the sizes and shapes of the beads fall into phrases, and my aesthetic, while (I certainly hope has become) over time, more refined, hasn't really changed much. Similarly, the colours work reasonably well together: it's mostly the coarseness of the beads themselves that grates; I like to think my designs, with more sections of smaller beads, have a greater elegance as well.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.