Jewellery

Designer Michele Foster's current work is rooted in the colour and form lessons of a young life spent researching and drawing elaborate historical costume and jewellery designs. These lessons found their adult counterpoints in experiences of the cool tines of Californian and Hawaiian ocean hues, brilliant southwestern colour traditions and the dramatic natural visual forms of the Sonoran desert landscape. The Turquoise and Opal collection plays with these hues, drawing out the remarkable qualities of these two gemstones.

A wide variety of brightly-coloured stone inlay jewellery featuring natural semi-precious stones and shell designs with a contemporary SouthWestern USA flair. Among materials used are Sleeping Beauty Turquoise, Red Coral, Gaspeite, Lapis, Spiny Oyster Shell, Mother of Pearl, Pink Mussel Shell and Onyx. By Tucson AZ based designer Michele Foster.

The SouthWestern contemporary range takes on traditional southwestern designs. This line features natural Sleeping Beauty turquoise inlaid with Spiny Oyster Shell, Mother of Pearl and Onyx, with all designs set in sterling silver. By Tucson AZ based designer Michele Foster. The cool, soothing blues of the ocean and the dramatic energising colours of the desert combine themselves in her work.

Sonoran opal jewellery features quality cultured or laboratory-grown opal. The flashes of colour and iridescence in opal, its 'play of colour', results from the intereference of light by the minute spheres of silica gel that comprise the gem. Cultured opal not only effectively reproduces the iridescence but is also more affordable and less fragile than its natural counterpart. The jewellery in this line features white, green or blue cultured opal and many styles feature accents of natural gemstones such as turquoise, onyx and sugalite. By Michele Foster of Tucson AZ.