……………………I believe at this point in our relationship it is no secret that I am absolutely in love, beguiled and hypnotized by anything from antiquity. I love ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Africa, China, Central America etc etc. There is just something so mesmerizing about these ancient cultures and the art they produced……certainly more creative than much of what we see today. Remember, these artists had nothing to go by….they were creating the first of everything…..The thought is mind boggling. They were creative for the sake of creativity without any preconceived ideas……Yes, the Romans were greatly influenced by the Greeks, but the individual artists were basically creating from nothing…..They had no reference material, art books or computers to work from….All of the Roman coins above were created by these artisans. Today they are each well over $1000 and upwards to $40,000 and more for each coin. They are just beautiful…..They were just too expensive to buy to have reproduced…….I have long been intrigued with the idea of doing Roman coin jewelry…….Many years ago I did a group of coin jewelry for Anne Klein. Let me say now….they were nothing compared to what I am offering you now at half the price!!!I also did tee shirts and blouses, summer long skirts all adorned with coins……..Andrea Pfister, who I collaborated with on my Anne Klein Couture shoe collection, came up with a fantastic group of coin decorated bags, a variety of sandals and strappy high heel sandals. Jac had a pair of tea cup heel thongs in black with a V plaque on the instep covered in coins. They jingle jangled when she walked. I thought they were so sexy. I think they are still here somewhere in the house with all of Jac’s shoes….I’ll have to look………….but that was years ago………Then a few months ago Kate said in a post to me that she would love some coin jewelry…..That put the so called bee in my bonnet…the creative juices started to flow….I have wanted to do coins for so long…..this was the push I needed……but how to do it in a FABULOUS way was the big question. When I mentioned this group to my TCJC group I first got a lukewarm reception, but they let me do anything I want, because ultimately they believe in me….even if they can’t see it. All they can reference is what they have seen before, not what IT COULD BE….. The coins that were avail. on the open market were tinny and cheap. They just weren’t going to do it for me. How to get it done my way??? I took pictures of the Roman coins to all of the different manufacturers I work with, and told them what I wanted to do. I use basically four different factories because they specialize in certain things, and after so many years they know what I like, and just as important, what I don’t like! Some specialize in pearls and all kinds of stones….other in metal, and others are more eclectic and work with everything……..The main factor was who could manufacture THE COINS I WANTED!!!! At one of the factories they showed me a 3-D computer that can copy and make almost everything. They are amazing machines! They have one computer linked to one machine, and one young man who operates it. He works in a room the size of a small closet! You need the patience of a Saint and time, time time. When I saw the possibilities of what he could do I knew this was the answer to my prayers!!! I worked with him and showed him the photos of the coins…..”could you make these?” I said. “I’m pretty sure I can.” was his answer. He did tell me it would be much more difficult from a flat photo than from an object. I got so excited I shut the door and worked with him so we wouldn’t be disturbed…..leaving everyone else to go and get coffee or what ever! I told him exactly what I wanted and the sizes I needed. I wanted BOTH SIDES of the coins to be exactly like the designs in the photos I showed him. Having one side look like the coins and the other side some random texture wasn’t going to cut it. I can be a DEMANDING task maker when I WANT something…..Doing designs on both sides was double the work, but that’s how the coins were…..It would take many many hours and sometime days to make one coin prototype layer by layer by layer. As I said, it is so much more difficult to make a two sided 3-D coin from a photograph than it would have been if he had the actual coin. It is so complicated it can give a normal person a migraine. We selected the photos of the coins to be replicated that he thought would be the most successful. I, of course wanted more, but I couldn’t be a total pig!!! After about 25 minutes I realized this was going to take days, so I opened the door and left him to his work. There was a look of relief on everyone’s face when I finally emerged. Of course if others were in the room they would have exclaimed about cost!!!! Not something I wanted to hear. We will work on the cost later…..The coins had to be right or the whole project would have been a huge failure….at least for me………I learned that after the first coins were made he had to go back to the computer to refine them to make sure he got the aged look of the coins….After four weeks the finished coins were sent to me….the result is what you see here in the following photos……..I hope you are as excited as I was and am………..to be presenting these incredible pieces to you……………They have become some of my all time favorites……..My only fear is we didn’t order enough…………………………………..enjoy………………much Love………………………….Luigino
