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Los Angeles. Nov. 30, 2018. Nearly four years ago, Rhonda Faber Green’s niece asked her to tattoo one of Green’s award-winning jewelry designs on her. The Los Angeles-based designer with the eponymous firm had an office on Rodeo Drive to service tony diamond-and-gold-jewelry-loving clients, but no tattoos. She also wasn’t a trained tattoo artist, but she was intrigued enough with the idea of expressing her creativity through ink that she secured a tattoo apprenticeship within a month of her niece’s request.

“I thought, ‘I’m an artist, a designer, a calligrapher, and draw my jewelry all the time, why not tattoos?'” Green recollects. “I’ve seen some that are beautiful and others that just aren’t so great.”

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For the next year and a half, Green learned traditional or Western-style tattoos with bold lines and bright colors, new school tattoos with exaggerated subject depictions, Japanese styles, and more. “I would work in jewelry all day and then go to the tattoo shop in the evening and on weekends,” she says. Naturally, she brought her calligraphy skills into the mix with initial tattoos. Green was undeterred by the prospect of meeting her classmates at orientation. “I was the oldest and the only woman there,” she says. Then there was the tattoo-buying demographic – much different from her jewelry clients. “Tattoo clients are typically in their 20s and 30s, and they are not big collectors of diamonds,” she adds.

Still, she persisted and found many commonalities between jewelry and tattoo design. Think details, a steady hand, an intense focus, and the permanence of both. “You’ll have a tattoo and a piece of jewelry forever,” she notes. “And both mean a lot to people.”

Thus far, Green has tattooed a semi-colon on a man who tried to commit suicide as a reminder to pause and think about decisions carefully, a single musical note on each of two daughters and a trio on their pop, the word “Thursday” on the arm of someone whose brother died on that day of the week, and birds in flight on the arm of a successful and sassy undocumented immigrant. More tats include a cuss word on the ribs of a young woman who broke all of her own in a four-wheeling accident and myriad soundwave tattoos, which Green had to become licensed to do. “I’m the only one in the shop who is licensed to do soundwave tattoos,” she says.

Soundwave tattoos are a trademarked effort from app developer Skin Motion, where interested parties download the app and enter their sound in order to generate a soundwave. Then they bring it to Green, who turns it into a tattooable design. Once in place on a client, he or she can scan the wave in the app to hear the message on their phone. Many are the voices of deceased loved ones (example here) or pets, and one was a voicemail message from a woman who committed suicide – this soundwave tattoo emblazoned on the legs of two friends in mourning.

Women wanting a tat on the sternum frequently enlist Green’s help because of her gender – “They say they feel more comfortable with me,” she reveals – and sometimes Green’s motherly instincts kick in to thwart questionable decisions. “I talk people out of tattoos on their neck, face, and fingers because it scares people,” she says. “I ask them, ‘Do you want to work?’ They say yes, and I tell them they won’t if they get tattoos in those places.”

Green has even had a brush with stardom: an American political TV commentator met one of Green’s jewelry-collecting fans on a cruise. The personality admired Green’s jewelry, and its owner dished on Green’s jewelry and tattoo design talent, prompting the admirer to seek out Green for some ink and a jewel.

And while she’s not inked any of her jewelry peers, Green’s niece did finally secure her aunt’s inky handiwork. “On my niece, I tattooed a rose and the word “Stronger,” says Green.

As for herself, Green still lacks a tat on her own person, but her signature heart design (see below) and a flower are likely in her future. She tries to keep the two worlds separate, but chattier tattoo clients may learn her secret if they talk long enough.

“Some clients say, ‘How do you know how to do this? Your detail is so incredible,'” says Green. “So, my jewelry design comes out in conversation that way.”

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Find Green on some evenings and weekends at Body Art & Soul Tattoo in Los Angeles. Call her at 424-653-6353 or email her at tattoosbyrhonda@gmail.com to schedule an appointment. Follow her Instagram account @tattoosbyrhonda to see her work.

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New York City. Nov. 28, 2018. Coomi Bhasin of Coomi never took offense when her über macho contractor colleagues – she was an executive in construction a lifetime ago – spray painted “The Bitch Resides Here” on the side of her projects. Instead, she reveled in the vulgar name, bringing it out of retirement years later as a gold-and-diamond-encrusted badge of honor to wear in her fine jewelry. Enter the new Uncensored Collection in 20k gold.

“I used to love it,” she recollects with a laugh. “I was in a man’s world with some of the toughest people imaginable, and I was always very proud.”

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After years of honing her antique-inspired golden signature style, complete with a paisley-motif tag and a diamond inset that touches the skin, she decided to loosen up her masterfully high-end aesthetic with a collection that revealed a cheekier side.

 

“I’m expressing what every woman feels – that they are tired of being expected to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, and they can’t say this or that,” she explains. “My son said, ‘Mom, you can’t do this,’ but I’ve always restrained myself.”

So, to appease her son, who doubles as a coworker, she tempered the irreverence of Uncensored by putting the Sagrada aesthetic (think lovely enamel) on the backsides.

Some of the nine styles to date (they only arrived yesterday) include a band that spells out “Warrior,” a skull pendant emblazoned with FOH on the forehead, the phrase “Sorry Not Sorry,” and a question mark with the word “Whatever” sinuously situated in the outline of the punctuation. Still, not every piece contains shocking language; modest types will prefer the bracelet with oval shapes imprinted with the words “Love,” “Truth,” “Wisdom,” “Faith,” and “Joy.” By mid-December, Bhasin will have more, as well as a lower price point in sterling silver. Still, we’ll all have to wait until spring to purchase, since Uncensored is not yet in stores. Tentatively, the gold line will range in retail price from $1,000 to $10,000.

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“It’s the most fun collection I’ve ever done,” says the designer.

Not surprisingly, her favorite is the Bitch pendant, where the word is spelled out on a hand giving viewers the middle finger. “I identify with that one the most,” she says coolly.

 

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New York City. Nov. 27, 2018. It may seem hard to believe, “but many of America’s horses are at risk of slaughter” a fact that jewelry designer Mikelle Terson of Mikelle Design and the EQUUS Foundation would like to change.

This is because in 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill that restored the American horse-slaughter industry. The administration investigated the fate of many of these majestic creatures once their usefulness (think racing horses) or terms as pets expired, determining that the ban on horse slaughter led to increased abuse and neglect – and the illegal shipment of horses to Mexico and Canada for butchering. The re-establishment of the American horse slaughter industry meant that the lives of the animals could perhaps be more humanely ended on U.S. soil with proper inspections in place to guarantee a level of accountability.

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While the thought behind the governmental move was a thoughtful, albeit controversial, one, horse lovers are understandably aghast at the thought of ponies being butchered for meat. So Terson, who has a history of supporting animal welfare organizations with her jewelry, teamed up with the EQUUS Foundation to offer horse-motif necklaces with proceeds benefiting the welfare of American horses. The effort is called the Happy Horse Giving Campaign.

The mission of EQUUS is to protect and strengthen the bond between horses and humans, and it does so by supporting organizations that shelter, rehabilitate, retrain, and rehome horses in need, as well as offering retirement opportunities for aged horses or scenarios that would allow horses to help change people?s lives, such as through therapy.

Mikelle came in contact with EQUUS while exhibiting at the Hampton Classic on Long Island in New York. She was fascinated by its mission and was shocked at learning that a horse once considered a beloved family pet or champion racer could actually end up in a slaughter house.

“Sometimes horses get sold several times and ownership gets lost along the way,” she explains. “Many people have no idea that this could happen – that their horse could end up in slaughter.”

To help, Terson created two horse necklace designs, each available in sterling silver, 18k yellow gold, and 14k rose gold, and she enlisted the help of a longtime client and philanthropist who earmarks an annual budget to help worthy animal causes. With that help, 100 percent financial matches will be made to EQUUS with the sale of every one of her necklaces.

“It’s an unusual opportunity when something is matched 100 percent,” she says. “Even big companies that use the pink ribbon to generate donations for breast cancer research will only donate about three percent, but to have someone match the same price that you pay for a necklace? That’s unheard of.”

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This behind-the-scenes benefactor is willing to match up to $15,000, or the equivalent of 15 of Terson’s Vertical Jump horses in gold. But here’s the catch: the Dec. 31 deadline for donations is fast approaching. “That doesn’t seem unconquerable in a month, does it?” she maintains.

“Horses are such a strong symbol of power and majesty, and many are surprised to learn that they are not always living the life of safety and dignity that they deserve.”

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NEW YORK. Heart shapes inevitably inspire a wide range of emotions, from groan-and-eye-roll combinations among those opposed to the syrupy sweet symbol to happily surprised exclamations from those who like kitsch. And since hearts have been steadily making appearances in the collections of some of jewelry?s toniest artists (think Irene Neuwirth), I decided to find out why.

Deirdre Featherstone, a longtime platinumsmith with a penchant for motorcycles and big diamonds, didn?t really consider the shape as one to use until her daughter was born. ?I always thought hearts were overly sentimental,? she explains. ?It?s not a shape I would have used until I met my own child.?

So, with those feelings in mind, when she visited the Coober Pedy opal mine in Australia in 2014 and spied an opal cut into a heart shape, she was instantly smitten. She purchased it, later spotting two other opal shapes at a different mine that combined to form an exclamation mark; these, too, she purchased. She brought them home and let them sit in her safe for months?as designers tend to do with gemmy acquisitions?until inspiration struck. She would make a graffiti-esque homage to her daughter. With a fat black Sharpie, she inked ?I? and ?CEM? (her daughter?s initials) on paper, then tracing and cutting them from sheet metal to make playful platinum cursive letters with diamond pav? and “milgrain defining and dividing the?letters,” she notes. She sandwiched the opal heart (bezel-set into a platinum and diamond frame) between the letters with the opal exclamation mark capping off the wearable sentence. The piece commands so much attention that she snagged a custom order for a similar style from a client at Bergdorf Goodman over the weekend.

For Kimberly McDonald?the designer who put framed geodes on the map?the heart also has an understated place among her offerings. After all, it has limited appeal, but when found in an unusual material (like the crystal opal in her personal collection), they are fun. ?You get a different play of color and a different reflection of light when you have different angles and curves,? she explains about heart-shape opals.

Meanwhile, for Lauren Kessler of Lauren K., hearts have appeal for their classic nature. ?There will always be women who adore hearts and men who enjoy presenting heart jewelry to the ones they love,? she says.

One of her favorite styles are opal and diamond heart-shape stud earrings. ?They are the perfect size, are easy to throw on, and mix with well with all types of fine and fashion jewelry,? she adds. They are also so popular that they?re often out of stock; luckily, the pair below is available now.

 

 

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