Abalone Wings

I've just finished this necklace. Although I do very few special orders any more, I took this one on because it was one of the most striking pieces of abalone I've ever seen. The abalone was acquired by a customer some time ago in a very inexpensive pendant. I've seen a lot of abalone over the years and have boxes and boxes of it that I've found at the ocean on the Mendocino coast in the last 20 years. This piece was special. I captured some of it's color in the image but some escaped. I'll be putting up more images of our new work soon, we are gradually building up a good stock of new pieces for our first show of the year in Los Altos in a little over two months.      -Jima-