How Does Your Garden Grow?
Like (oddly enough) an English garden, a colored stone pendant from Goldesign in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, tells a colorful and unruly tale of flowers, foliage, and butterflies. Designer Ana Marcia Albuquerque’s 18k gold homage to nature is rendered in amethyst, beryl, peridot, tsavorite, topaz, rubies, rubellite, and diamonds. From sketch to final polish, the piece took craftsmen just one month to complete, and while it’s a one-of-a-kind, Albuquerque has made similar-looking styles. “I’m always inspired by flowers,” she told JCK during the Feninjer fair in São Paulo in August. “I’m not worried about making the ‘right’ combination; I like the English gardens that flow freely.” She pointed to the oversized pendant: “This is happy.”
While Albuquerque says that clients in the market for such bold styles often hail from the Middle East, she recently encountered one much closer to home. On a farm within Belo Horizonte city limits, she attended a garden party where she saw a woman wearing a simple white cotton dress and a big gemstone pendant; as Albuquerque got closer to the guest, she spotted her own handiwork. The combination of the garden setting and the oversize pendant from an older Goldesign collection inspired the new piece. “When designing, I follow what feels right to make,” she says. “This is a fresh look for a pendant.”