Bedtime stories for the Artlover (Part 1): Secret in the Forest Box by 2Roses

Bed Time Stories will be a regular feature on my blog. I will select and publish exceptional pieces of art with interesting stories that tie each piece into a strong context  with society, history, people and provide insight into inner workings of the artists mind. I hope that it will provide an understanding of art in a plain language, that is so sadly missing from many collections and publications. If you got one that you would like to share, please send me a message!

So here it about an old house, two ferocious artists and an urban gang by 2Roses jewelry    :

Secret in the Forest Box, originally uploaded by 2Roses Jewelry. Media: Plum boughs, Honduran mahogany. Lined with California redwood. The box also features a secret compartment.Size: 9.5”L x 4”W x 6”H.
 © 2Roses Jewelry All rights reserved.


"  Lots of things came together to make this box. The plum wood was harvested from a tree on our property. As I was trimming the tree, the red color of the bark was just too pretty to trash.
    The mahogany was salvaged from a historical Southern California home slated for demolition due to urban renewal. The home was built in 1895 by a wealthy industrialist and featured many luxuries and technological advancements for the time, including the first alarm system installed in a home. The home was featured in the first issue of Architectural Digest in 1920.
   The curator of the local Historical Society obtained permission from the City Council for 2Roses to reclaim the wood just hours before the entire house was bulldozed. We received that permission in a phone call at 10:30 pm. The bulldozers were scheduled to start the teardown at 7 am the next morning. 
   By the time we got our tools together and rushed to the house, two gangs of thieves were already at work striping the copper plumbing out of the walls. Things got pretty confrontive when we showed up. The thieves were from different local hispanic gangs and they had already worked out a truce to strip the house. They saw us a rival gang trying to intrude on their turf and they were ready to throw down to defend it.
  We eventually convinced them that we were from the historical society and really didn't care about the copper pipes, that we were after the woodwork. The gangbangers thought this was hilarious that the "blancos" would come out in the middle of the night to steal old wood. They actually ended up helping us a bit. "


About 2Roses Jewelry :

"2 Roses is artistic collaboration between jewelry designers Corliss Rose, and John Rose. The studio is driven by the principles of exploration and experimentation. 2 Roses have made their mark on American Art Jewelry with a individualistic style that has combined a dizzying array of highly unorthodox materials and techniques ranging from the medieval to the space-age."

 " 2Roses world-class inventory management system ensures our Just-In-Time manufacturing process meets global demand for stuff. "
 © 2Roses Jewelry All rights reserved.

Corliss and John are truly eclectic, imaginative and very creative people buzzing with life and humor. Their art simply cannot fit any box as they are ready to play with anything that crosses their path. 

The following is a little sample, randomly selected from their extensive body of work.

  © 2Roses Jewelry All rights reserved.

  © 2Roses Jewelry All rights reserved.

Your ultimate guide to buying and pricing handmade jewelry. Part 1.

I have decided to write about buying and pricing handcrafted jewelry! Let me first assure you that there is nothing specific about pricing handmade jewelry or any other handmade crafts. So the title is misleading, but I stick with it nonetheless! I choose it intentionally to point out misconceptions associated with jewelry purchase. It is not intended to be a tutorial, nor it is intended to be full guide! However it will be a long series of blogposts, because I want make my point using a lot of examples, detailed description of work processes and critical analysis of my and other jewelers' pieces.

So what does the word misconception mean? According to Wikipedia: "A misconception happens when a person believes in a concept which is objectively false."

What kind of misconception many people have when buying jewelry? First and foremost is that they are buying precious metals and stones. The sad truth is hidden in the first sentence of this paragraph. When buying jewelry, people buying man created objects that are often made from precious metals and gemstones. So what is the difference? The difference is the the same as in buying 2000 pounds of steel, aluminum, plastic, glass and textile versus buying an automobile.

Before we plunge in the details I will summarize the most common measurements used the jewelry industry. This will help you tremendously later.

Density: Density is defined as an objects mass per unit volume.
Specific weight is defined as an objects weight per unit volume.
For detailed physics lessons the reader referred to other web sites and manuals.
In the future I will use density, acknowledging that specific weight may be more appropriate.

We need this definition to understand a few basic ideas about jewelry prices. The following example will show you the practical application of this definition:
You want to make a ring in platinum, 14K gold, 18K gold and sterling silver and would like to know how much metal you need to make this ring. If you say, well in my experience 3 grams of 18K gold is enough, therefore I will buy 3 grams of each of the other metals, then you are already screwed up on several fronts. Your 3 grams of platinum will not be nearly enough to make the ring, while you will have bought too much silver and generated a lot of scrap, that you will have to recycle.
How is this? Since the density of platinum is much higher than that of silver, equal weight of them will give you a longer silver wire, than platinum wire.Exactly how much longer? If you need 3 grams of sterling silver to make a ring, then you will need 6.21 grams of platinum, 4.38 g of 18K gold, 3.75 g of 14K gold to make that ring.

Now I will show you this information translated into materials costs. Today's spot (market or cash price. This is the current price in the physical market for immediate delivery of gold) prices for gold: ~$941/troy ounce, silver ~$13.07/troy ounce, platinum ~$1047/troy ounce.
Hey wait a minute! You were talking about 3 grams of silver, now you are giving me the prices on WHAT ounce! Troy ounce. This is the traditional weight unit used by precious metal markets. Is it confusing? Yes, but if we would like to understand the Chinese, we gotta speak Chinese, right?

So allow me to continue. The market price of gold is given for "pure" gold. As we mostly make jewelry from gold alloys, we need to translate these prices into karat gold prices. Gold is alloyed mostly with copper,zink and silver, but their prices are negligible in this case, so don't bother.

Definition: karat: means how many parts (by weighth) of gold you have in the alloy if by tradition we say that fine gold contains 24 parts of gold in 24 parts of the metal (5 grams of 24K gold contains 5 grams of gold). For example 14 K contains 14 parts gold and 10 parts of other metals. It means that the gold content of 14 K alloy is 100*14/24% or 58.33333.%. 18 K gold has 100*18/24 or 75% of gold in it.

That's it for today, I gotta do some work now. We will continue soon. Hey, why dont you sign up for updates?