By no later of May 2001, I'd assembled a bunch of abstracts into a relatively straightforward necklace, clearly inspired by my friend and partner's sensibilities—she was always much more willing to take simple, bold components, exquisitely designed, than I ever was—as documented in the display image for a bead show:

The necklace in question is all the way to the right. I've adjusted the colour a bit (helped by the neutral grey inserts of the bead trays;) 05may2001, Nikon 990, f/2.5, ev 0, 1/60s, ISO 100, cropped & colour adjusted in gimp.

I did write about this piece back then but the photography is pretty horrible. Fast forward a couple of decades later, and the owner's daughters contacted me, wondering whether I would be willing to make a pair of matching earrings, as the woman had elected the piece to be part of her burial costume.

Glass, artist-made frit, gold and palladium leaf, sterling and bali silver. 2000?

I was honoured to contribute, but while the deceased had strong opinions about her dress and necklace, she hadn't mentioned earrings; nor did I recall making any. Moreover, we weren't even certain her ears were pierced. Of course, the mortician could pierce her ears, but those large abstracts don't really lend themselves to posts, and the daughters understandably felt dangle earrings would hang oddly from a horizontal position.

This picture has truer colour, I think. Note some of the standard colour combos, such as the blue-green ‘Monet’ (positioned next to the coin) amongst a lot of OOAK—the mostly clear-colourless transparent frit bead dropped out pretty quickly as a style in favour of covering the bead as much as possible with thompson enamels.

I really felt if the client had not mentioned earrings that she didn't care about them very much. Perhaps we could do something else...

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