Island Treasures: Simple Elegance Gems, Kailua-Kona
By Lily Hoskinson-Weinstein
When you buy something made with passion and love, you can feel it. Wendy Greenfield has been collecting stones all her life, and when she moved to Hawai‘i Island five years ago, she expanded her creative outlet into an ever-growing business known as Simple Elegance Gems. Made from hand selected natural gems, Wendy uses sterling or fine silver to wire wrap stones, thereby encasing them and highlighting their natural beauty.
“The way I wrap is unique, and each wrapping job is different. Selecting a stone is a process, and in the end it’s just waiting to fall in love with the right one.” This jewelry is meant to emphasize uniqueness, always made with a single stone to be the star of the show and compliment whoever is wearing it. The wire wrapping is essentially just a frame for the beautiful gem, whether it is on a necklace, ring, earring, or bracelet.
RutileTriangle: This long triangular stone is a rutilated quartz. Purchased as a rough stone, it was cut and polished before being wire wrapped in sterling silver. This stone is part of a group referred to as “stuff-in-quartz.” The golden needles in the gem are rutile, surrounded in clear rock crystal quartz that took over one millennium to form. In most cases, the “stuff” in the quartz is rutile, manganese, or tourmaline, but it is commonly unknown what the inclusions are made of, making it a beautiful mystery.
The “Traffic Stopper”: This round, sparkly stone is a druzy quartz, made up of tiny crystals of quartz that grew on a chalcedony base. Minerals crystallized over the gem in a mat-like layer, which is why it is called “druzy.” The formation is natural, each bit being a separate, six-sided quartz crystal. The tiny crystals reflect off one other, giving this gem a natural eye-catching sparkle.
White Water Turquoise: This pastel blue gem is a piece of turquoise from the White Water Mine in Arizona. It was not highly polished in order to maintain its natural glow. After it was shaped, the stone was wrapped in silver and dangled from a silver chain. The picture was taken on Big Island lava rock with tiny green olivine crystals growing in it to emphasize the spectacular blues in the turquoise.
Simple Elegance Gems vends at Ali‘i Gardens Marketplace, about one mile south of downtown Kailua-Kona, mauka on Ali‘i Drive. If you have your own gem you would like to be wrapped, Simple Elegance Gems makes custom jewelry, too!
Simple Elegance Gems
Ali‘i Gardens Marketplace, Kailua-Kona
SimpleEleganceGems.com
