Pamela was invited to be one of nine participants in the 5th annual MJSA Online Design Challenge and
voting is now open to the public! Click here to go to the voting page to see all nine entries and vote for your favorite. (Of course, we hope Pamela's design is your favorite!) You can only vote once so, if you'd like to help Pamela win, please share the voting link on your favorite social media outlets.
Here's a little more background on the competition, copied from MJSA's website:
The 2014 Design Challenge: A Mother’s Love
For the fifth consecutive
year, we’re hosting this online-only project, a favorite among our
readers and website visitors. This year’s Design Challenge is centered around a padparadscha
sapphire available from the project’s sponsor, Omi Gems in Los Angeles.
We’ve supplied nine
designers with a fictional scenario, presented here, about a group of
siblings that have come together to commission a very special 70th
birthday gift for their mother:
A gorgeous Beacon Hill home in Boston. Eight beautiful
grandchildren. Enough time and money to travel the world. Amelia Andrews
has a good life—and she shows her appreciation for it by giving back to
her family and her community.
The Boston area native has spent the past 10 years since her
retirement from Boston University, where she was a professor of art
history, volunteering her time hosting art therapy sessions for homeless
youth in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. She finds great
satisfaction in helping kids—especially teenagers—work through their
emotions while painting, drawing, and sculpting. On more than one
occasion, Amelia’s compassion and tender nature has significantly
impacted the direction of a young person’s life, redirecting his path
toward a brighter future.
In addition to volunteering in the program for underprivileged
youth, Amelia is a patron of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—her
favorite museum in the U.S., and what she likes to call her “second
home.” She frequently leads tours and loves spending her free time
there.
About once a week, Amelia brings the two of her grandchildren who
are not yet school age to the museum for “art with grandma.” They
explore the rooms together and Amelia teaches them something new each
week. Her favorite painting there is an oil on canvas by Henri Matisse,
“The Terrace, Saint-Tropez,” which hangs in the museum’s Yellow Room. It
reminds her of the many trips she has taken with her husband to the
French Riviera. The pinkish orange color of the flowers in the painting
is Amelia’s favorite hue, reminding her of the many sunsets she has
enjoyed in her life.
About a year ago, Amelia’s four children got together to plan a
monumental gift for their mother’s 70th birthday, in honor of how much
she had given to her family and her community over the past decade. They
had discussed commissioning a jewelry piece Amelia could wear to events
and private parties that she hosted at the museum that would be as
impressive a work of art as the museum itself—something Isabella Stewart
Gardner herself would be proud to wear.
Amelia can most often be found wearing heirloom Cartier passed
down by her mother, most notably a collection of vintage brooches that
she adores. She prefers warm tones and is obsessed with the colors of a
sunset. This love of pinks and oranges fueled her children’s choice of a
gorgeous 4.49 carat oval padparadscha sapphire, sourced from Omi Gems,
as the focal point of the project.
Your mission is to design a special piece of jewelry for Amelia
around this padparadscha sapphire, using any other materials you see
fit. The cost of additional materials and labor cannot exceed a budget
of $20,000.
 |
| Pamela's versatile design can be worn as a brooch... |
 |
| ... or as a pendant! |
Here's how Pamela tackled the challenge, in her own words:
"I first approached the project by learning all I could about
Amelia—her passions in life, her favorite art museum, her love of
sunsets, and her fondness for heirloom Cartier pins. I wanted to create a
wearable work of art for this wonderful woman whose life has revolved
around art and giving back to her family and community. Because her
story inspired multiple design ideas, I did some research into classic
Cartier brooch styles to help narrow down the ideas. I noticed that many
of the brooches were round or oval in shape so I decided to go that
direction with the design.
Because I like versatility in my jewelry pieces, I chose to create a
piece that she could wear either as a brooch or as a pendant. This will
allow her the opportunity to wear it to a variety of functions with her
family throughout the year: as a brooch during the cold Boston winters
and as a pendant during the warmer months.
While designing the piece, I also studied her favorite painting,
Henri Matisse’s
“The Terrace, Saint-Tropez.” I took note of the colors
in the painting, wanting to incorporate her favorite part, the pinkish
orange flowers, into the brooch. I felt that my signature ombré
style—having the design transition from 18k pink gold to 18k yellow
gold—would capture the warmth of the flowers, and given Amela’s passion
for sunsets, seemed like a color palette that she would love. Also,
since the painting features a variety of beautiful flowers, I wanted the
piece to have a “flowery” feel without being too literal. I created a
scrollwork design reminiscent of petals radiating outward from the
sapphire center.
Finally, I added diamonds to the design for a bit of sparkle and to
highlight the gorgeous color of the padparadscha sapphire. An earlier
version of the design incorporated pinkish orange sapphires inspired by
the flowers in the painting but they blended too much into the gold and
didn’t pop enough. Replacing them with diamonds added just the right
amount of sparkle and, as they say,
"diamonds are a girl’s best friend,"
whether that girl is 17 or 70. Happy birthday, Amelia!"
