Prehnite Crystal Clam Shell Necklace - Katheryn Leopoldseder

Through making, my hands are always trying to recall that sense of discovery and wonder that I felt as a child combing the shoreline. Growing up on the Mornington Peninsula, the beaches that were near my house, the ones we used to ride our bikes to, were not the white sandy kind, but gritty, rocky and moody. Strewn with clumps of seaweed and marine pools to explore. There was wanderlust and danger, an ever-present awareness of the blue-ringed octopus and an acute sense of my own smallness. My eyes would follow the traces of scattered shells cast by the waves, searching for a blush hue I hadn’t seen before, mathematically precise patterns and tiny perfect architecture spiralling to hidden worlds.

Perhaps these moments, on these beaches; were where I was first becoming a jeweller.

The Clam Shell Necklace is as if drawn out of the waters of the sea. Hidden pearls evoke a sense of discovery. Silvery clams cling to seaweed-like threads of rough faceted Prehnite layered through with black tourmaline crystals. To wear the necklace recalls sand, salt and unhurried days spent searching for treasures on the waters edge.