www.sheilawestera.com

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Ring Laetizia

This green beauty is set with a raw stone — and in truth, I created this design around this particular stone.. but I always do this for every piece in the  Conversation Pieces collection.

My passion started by being inspired by a stone or a pearl first, after where I let my mind, mood and hands follow. When a shape or structure appears it always relates to the feeling, and that moment. I had to invent my own techniques to reflect this, next to being a perfect symbiosis between stone and design, as seen trough my eyes — because the balance needs to be right for me. 

The technique I used in ring Laetizia, is called conscious, and she belongs to what I consider one of my masterpieces in technique. For this ring I wanted to emphasise the natural-ness of what the Earth produces, and translate that into an interesting jewel with its completely own character, which I also like to honour. 

The beautiful light moss-green stone is a green kyanite — light green, but with depth. On your hand, Laetizia is quietly striking: bold to wear, and the kind of ring you don’t want to part with, as she is perfect to be worn to make an impact on a party or special occasion. Although some of my clients don't mind wearing my bolder pieces on many days of the week. Jewellery should always be personal, to reflect you being the best of you. 

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: Pure
• Technique: Conscious
• Stones/Gemstones: raw green Kyanite
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled mat.
• Price CHF 2.135

Ring Astrude

a ring with a real presence. She definitely stands out with her beautiful chunky, large, and rare Ethiopian opal, and she is bold and super elegant at the same time. I created the design around this particular beautiful iridescent stone, held tightly in my embrace setting (a style I invented too). I kept the stone as raw and natural as possible, in a structure that had to be somewhat minimal, but with character. She feels protective and strong, and very unique. Each stone deserves deserves its own personality and this leading design, comes with energy and importance.

Jewel Astrude belongs to my one-of-a-kind Conversation Pieces collection: each one with a unique stone, and it's own character, and to be never repeated.

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: Pure Style
• Technique: Embrace
• Stones/Gemstones: raw Ethiopian Opal
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Price CHF 2.465

Ring Zelda

A ring that's cool and pure. Cool because of her chunky and wonderful white-speckled obsidian — a stone I don’t often come across, and that alone makes this jewel quite unique. That’s why I wanted the design to stay more simple… but simple in my way.

Zelda belongs to my Conversation Pieces collection: one-of-a-kind stone jewels I create individually, and each comes with its own personality. For this ring I used a technique you’ll find more often in my work because I love it so much and I named it Possessions. Even when I return to the same technique, no jewel is ever the same: sometimes more intricate, sometimes more rough, a different material, simply depending on what it feels like at the time of creation. For this particular black stone ring I love that snowy, volcanic texture.

Zelda is a bold stone ring, and relatively easy to wear. I wanted her to be elegant and strong, a ring you can combine with almost anything. Built in my signature language and technique (patented), she catches attention in the most charming, understated way — and never to be replicated again. 

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: Pure
• Technique: possessions
• Stones/Gemstones: white speckled raw Obsidian
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Price CHF 1.885
  

Necklace Anush

An elegant jewel with a slight edge, made up of fabulous, perfect Akoya pearls combined with a bronze salamander — a detail that carries symbolism I genuinely love: transformation and survival, the ability to pass through difficult, intense, even “fiery” trials unscathed (as I’ve read).

It’s a pearl necklace with more meaning than most, because meaning matters to me in my work. I adore pearls, and at the same time they can come with that stuffy vibe — and I always want to break through that. I want pearls to feel exciting, and still completely wearable and so she’s fairly classic — but very much in my language, which simply means: a jewel with a twist.

In Anush, the pearls also create a soft rhythm: lustrous and varying in size, starting with the smallest and gradually moving towards the largest. The salamander closes the necklace by connecting both sides in a special way. 

There are always too many ideas in my workshop, spread out and waiting for the right moment to be finished. My work takes time — it’s that simple. It’s never only the creation, it’s the thought process before and during it, and overall in catching the right moment to create. Creating is exciting, and you can mostly find me working on my next jewel.

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: Fauna
• Stones/Gemstones: Akoya pearls
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled and bronze
• Price CHF 2.279

Ring Kyla

This ring is quite different from my stone jewels, as she belongs to my Purely Wired collection, where the focus is on intertwined lines — shapes that shift depending on the mood of my day. I honestly love that: being able to create with different mindsets, while still keeping a signature that's unmistakably mine. Each ring is a one-of-a-kind, and I also have made light and interesting earrings for this collection — pieces you can find in my workshop and gallery nearby the Kempinski hotel, in the main shopping street of Engelberg.

Kyla feels both organic and geometrical at the same time, which is an unusual combination. If you like to try her on or other rings in my collection, you’re welcome to come by on Thursday or Friday afternoon, or simply send me a message if you like to meet me on any other day of the week.

• Collection: Purely Wired
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Ring Size: 17 mm (small-medium)
• Price CHF 555

Ring Phylippa

This is one of those jewels that makes me smile. She’s bold, and amazing — a true one-of-a-kind pearl ring created around a white Baroque pearl.

I wanted the pearl to be the centre piece, but at the same time the design needed to shine too. A statement ring that sits relatively low on your hand. 

Phyllis has that clean, minimal feel that I wanted for this ring and at the same time I want to give her a true character, with a glamorous and impossible to ignore vibe or presence.. I’m always searching for that balance and personality for each jewel that I create.

Another beauty that belongs to my Conversation Pieces collection, each jewel with its own feel, style and its individual mood — mine, at the time of making — which is my own challenge, each time that I sit in my workshop. You will never find this exact ring from my hands again, maybe a version, but never the same. Phyllis is warm, luscious, and quietly important. 

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: Pure Drama
• Technique: Embrace
• Stones/Gemstones: Baroque pearl
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Ring size: 18 mm (Medium)
• Price CHF 2.465

Ring Wrapped Up

This pearl ring is named Wrapped Up, because that how she felt to me at first. This one-of-a-kind pearl beauty has a long Baroque pearl, that is held in place just by wire, again. Just different, again. I love creating jewellery that stands out from the crowd.

She led me to create a series around this idea, which I have named Dreamer, as it reflects my mood, when the idea came up at an unexpected moment. 

One of my biggest challenges (and honestly, one of my favourite parts) is finding forms in jewellery that feel new. Most of my work is built through my own invented techniques. This series is where a stone or a pearl is held tightly in a sculptural grip around your finger and it comes with an unexpected look. This jewel claims its place in the best way possible through her fabulous more minimal and strong look.

I’ve been surrounded by jewellery through family, and I’ve learned about it for the largest part of my life through studying and working in the field. I would have never thought I’d become a maker one day — I studied architecture and art history — but at the same time it feels like a logical step. I truly love that moment when a new idea becomes reality. And my biggest drive is to find uniqueness in what I create.

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series/ technique: Dreamer
• Stones/Gemstones: Baroque pearl
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Ring size: 16 mm (small) 
• Price CHF 1.855

Necklace-Choker Phyllis

This highly original stone choker is one of my own favourites. After I made my first stone choker, more than one client wanted to own it once it had sold — the photos were still on my social media, and the requests kept coming. Only I never replicate my work for the Conversation Pieces collection, so I decided to create a few more stone chokers. Each with its own personality (just like my stone rings), each with a completely different atmosphere.

Every stone design is important on its own, and together they are even stronger. I love the process of choosing the colours and varieties — until it simply feels right together.

My love for stones is what led me to create my very first ring, using a technique that I developed because out of a personal need, as I wanted to wear one of my own stones on my hand, in a design that I had never seen myself before.. Over time I refined the different techniques that I invented, until it became how I wanted it to be, leading to more unique designs form my hand (and yes, they’re patented). One of them is named Possessions — and in this choker, each stone is set in that way.

I create jewellery out of a passion for stones, combined with an obsession with wearability and originality: making pieces you simply haven’t seen before. Each one comes with its own character — made to let you feel like the most unique person in the room.

And it’s already proven itself. My clients have been stopped on the street or at parties and asked about my jewels — which I still find the biggest compliment. That’s exactly how the collection got its name: Conversation Pieces.

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: Pure
• Techniques: posessions
• Stones/Gemstones: polished amethyst, a raw citrine crustal, a raw peackock ore, a polished aventurine, and a polished amazonite
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled and blackened silver
• Price CHF 3.674

Ring Madan

Comes with a Wow! stone in a wonderfully elegant yet bold design. A precious and delicious pink. If you go for pink, you should just go all the way! This particular pink is exactly that: mesmerising, unapologetic, and impossible to forget.

What makes her even stronger is the contrast between the intensity of the colour and the way she’s intricately captured by my Possessions technique — a technique style that I invented. The name for the series was chosen because that's how it felt to me at the time, wanting to capture and wear a stone in an organic way, because I wanted to wear a stone that I collected close to me, in a design and technique not known to me before. Each jewel becomes sculptural, with a protective feeling that I love. Ring Madan became a powerful, jewel because of it.

This is one of the most beautiful pink tones I’ve ever come across, and she’s rare as a stone, in colour, in size, and in that perfect presence, and the possessions technique comes across as raw luxury, which makes this ring so exciting. The oval shape adds to the overall elegance, a piece that comes with her own exciting attitude. We all know that feeling that pink can give you but this one isn't for wallflowers.

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: pure
• Technique: Possessions
• Stones/Gemstones: a rare Rhodonite colour
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Ring size: 18.5 mm (medium to large)
• Price CHF 2.375

Ring Arosa

With Ring Arosa I was inspired by the Swiss mountains — a somewhat sharp but bright feeling of rock and nature next to my own amazement each time when I realise how many such beauties are hidden in mountains, tucked into cracks, living inside grey stone-masses.

My love for stones started at a young age, and I’m still completely smitten by the colours, the shapes, and the simple fact that they exist — and that they can be found in the most unexpected places, and that the Earth produces such beauty. This part of Switzerland isn’t known for spectacular stone finds, but I know other regions quite close that truly get me excited. Living and working in the Swiss Alps makes that even more tempting: a small country, and yet so many mountains to explore.

The crystal in Arosa is an edgy raw rock crystal, with a pointed and unapologetic attitude. Some might see this as dangerous — I only see beauty. Her height doesn’t bother me; it excites me when I try her on. And because the ring itself is an easy size, she’s surprisingly wearable… with a little caution, of course. After all, she is pointy — and that’s exactly what gives this smaller ring its unique bite.

I’m usually not into smaller rings. But when I am, they need to have that extra thing I love: an edge, a hint of humour, or a touch of boldness. Arosa is one-of-a-kind and part of my Conversation Pieces collection — stone rings I create intuitively, each with its own stone, character, and presence.

• Collection: Conversation Pieces
• Series: pure
• Technique: Embrace
• Stones/Gemstones: raw Swiss rock crystal
• Materials: 14 kt yellow gold-filled
• Ring Size: 16 3/4 mm (small- medium) 
• Price CHF 1.297

Find more jewellery via my webshop: www.sheilawestera.com