I first met Polly Wales in a phone booth. I know — that sounds weird, doesn’t it? It was actually all very innocent. It was a few years ago and Polly had recently sent me some information about her new jewelry collection. I was intrigued by the pictures she sent. Fast forward a couple of months and I learned that she was at a trade show I was shopping — not as an artist trying to sell her jewelry, but as a friend of another artist whose work I was buying. When we met, we agreed that we should set up some time for me to look at the small sampling of her collection that she was traveling with at the time. We needed a spot that was not on the show floor but not to terribly far away. Low and behold — the phone booth! Ok, so it was actually more of a phone “room” — not very big by any means, but big enough for a few of us to congregate in to view Polly’s beautiful creations. Fast forward another year, and Polly took the jewelry world by storm and I couldn’t resist!
A British designer who has recently re-located her family, business and studio to LA, Polly describes her jewelry as never having a perfect moment. Her process is to cast an array of gemstones inside precious metal to create pieces that always have unique and slightly unpredictable outcomes. Her jewelry has a rough luxe to it – she describes it as a “from the earth aesthetic – as if geodes had split open and stones broke through the surface of the gold at random points.
The word “unique” is so often overused, but I really do believe that it’s a word that truly describes this jewelry. Why don’t you stop in and see for yourself at our trunk show September 23 and 24.