Paula Crevoshay
“As a child, I collected costume jewelry, and I would put it in ice cream cone boxes because they were festive and colorful. When I continued on in my education, all of my teachers recognized my talent and my gift and they kept coming to my parents saying we think this child needs art lessons. My mother's friend has her master's degree in painting and she said that I can teach Paula. I started initially as painting and printmaking and drawing and sculpture more than I did jewelry and graduated with honors from VCU in Richmond, Virginia. Then went on a full scholarship to the University of Wisconsin Madison, for my master's degree in fine arts," said Paula Crevoshay, fine jewelry designer.
Paula Crevoshay, the Queen of Color, is known for her one-of-a-kind vibrantly hued creations in a dazzling rainbow of gemstones and enamels. She has traveled to many interesting places including India where she practiced her craft outside of jewelry making. Then when she came back to the states, her passion for gems and jewelry was brought to life.
“I had one woman shows in India I got whisked away to India, where the jewelry part starts to become important in my life. We were there for years without coming home and I was exposed to so much antiquity and brilliance. I cannot describe how infinite India and Sri Lanka and Thailand were, the history of art and anything from textile to a jewel to a painting, it's just very inspirational. I did one-woman shows to show my paintings and sculpture work, and the British Council for the Arts bought some for their permanent collection. When we came back home, we weren't sure what we were going to do. So, we decided we'd help the Tibetans because my late husband, George was a Ph.D. in Buddhist philosophy and linguistics and that is why we were there. We did vegetable-dyed handwoven Tibetan rugs and shipped them out by sea and by the time they reached his mother's home, in Boston, and by the time we got back, she had already sold all the carpets. Then we sold carpets and were doing very well. But George decided it was killing his back and he wants to do something different. He went off to Burma on a research project for his linguistics and things that he was working on and he went to an ancient holy site and met a gentleman, at a mountain in Burma, overlooking 1000 stupas, it's a holy place for Buddha. And he said, You're obviously American, and you have a Tibetan jolla on what are you doing here? And he said, Oh, I'm going to invest in a rupee mine and my friends want to take me on a tour of it. George says That sounds cool. Can I come along? So a simple twist of fate. George comes back from that trip and says, we need to go into the gemstones,” said Paula.
Paula is inspired by nature when she crafts her pieces and she believes artists today must understand and apply the underlying science to their work.
I had to know my geomorphology in order to make what I want to make, what's available, and why and how durable is it. I started long ago making stories through the jewelry, through the stones that I selected to reveal something about the science of that gem location, the science of that, that mineral. For example, George started cutting for the very famous Stewart Lithium Mine in Southern California, outside of San Diego for a three-year period. I accumulated a lot of material from that landmine location. What I decided to do is make a bracelet for example, of like three or 400 stones, and it's all flexible. To tell the story of one of our greatest minds in most famous lines in the terminal in the field because the Empress Dowager the last Empress Dowager was exporting tonnage of our very vast and beautiful terminal aids. Their favorite stone and most auspicious and lucky stone in the Chinese culture is the rubellite tourmaline. I had exposure to mine locations, I would say George spoke and wrote seven South Asian languages reading, writing, speaking, and many other Western ones as well. So everywhere we went, we would go right to the heart of everything. The world was my oyster. I do things to tell the story of homology. I also use refractive indices in my work to do like a spectrum of light pieces. I've done five one-woman shows for museums. The last one was the shown shape of matter through an artist I, and I had about 75 pieces, and I set them up all by the seven-crystal system. There are only seven that creates this whole planet we have and I did that so that I could teach children and adults alike when they would view that there's something behind these pieces. I did what I call my symphony of light collections, where you have some stones that are highly dispersive. Then you have others that are more gentle and prismatic. So I would put all these things together into something highly ornamental and exquisitely beautiful. But when you turn it in the light, it shoots back to the human eye on many different levels, like a dance of life, or a disco ball. So, I've always been fascinated by science. My father was a great scientist, with many, many patterns and I do have a bit of his wiring. My mother's side was the more artistic and creative side. He was creative, because he got a lot of patents, but it was science,” said Paula.
Paula also talks about her Big Reveal piece and how she uses her skills and style to make it hers. Tune in to learn more about her story and the piece that will be displayed at the October 8th fashion show event.
Please visit Paula’s website to see more of her work.
To see Naomi's final piece follow the Makers of the USA on Instagram and Facebook and Maine Mineral & Gem Museum on Instagram and Facebook as well as the images will be posted on both of those social media platforms.