“This story actually begins with what I did not want. Wrestling with the colour, cut, clarity and money equation of an artificially inflated diamond industry left me with a choice that might be beautiful but was certainly not exceptional. Specify a cut, an acceptable colour, the amount you can afford, and one’s pain tolerance for inclusions and out pops a diamond from a catalogue that is literally exactly like millions of other diamonds. Where is the reflection of personality, where is the gift of something rare and exceptional, where is the art, in choosing from a catalogue?

Besides, how many times have all of us heard the new-engagement-ring conversation at one of those pre-wedding parties? The bride to be in a crowd of oh-ing and ah-ing women that almost instantaneously cuts to the chase right down to the second decimal: “How many carats?” The men in another corner with a drink in one hand and the other casually in their pocket while expertly comparing the half-understood difference between V VS2 and VS1 and then laughingly, half whisperingly admitting the trade-off of the other C’s for carats because after all, size matters, eh fellas?

Where is the joy of the gift of art in that?

That wasn’t my relationship with Laurina, that wasn’t our story and that certainly wouldn’t work for the symbol of our future together.

Finding Cynthia wasn’t easy. Countless websites, hundreds of downloaded pictures and dozens of phone calls to gem dealers left me pretty cold. But then I saw a small picture of a ring design that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Somewhere online. No caption, no information. About five hours later, I found the woman who designed it.

Laurina and I live in the Caribbean, living and working on the islands of Trinidad and Barbados.
I was marrying a Caribbean woman and wanted a stone that reflected more than light, I wanted it to reflect the best of her, the warmth of the culture that she is from and the uniqueness of our relationship.

I called Cynthia and fumblingly tried to explain who we were what I wanted. But in trying, what came out was a sort of a fumbling, rambling, sailor’s description of the different colours of the shallow Caribbean water over white sand, an attempt at describing the variation and depth of the blue colours you see when you are looking straight down into eighteen thousand feet of calm ocean with the tropical sun directly overhead. And I went on for far, far too long very seriously trying to describe feminine strength and elegance and ring design by comparing the lines on a ’66 Jaguar E Type and a ’55 Ferrari 250 GT.

I must have sounded like a complete idiot. But, somehow, she understood completely.

Before I knew it, she was emailing me photos of a rough cuprian tourmaline that could have been cut from the sea fifty feet off of Barbados on a sunny day. Then I started getting shots of grinding and polishing. Within a couple of weeks, she showed me a her custom mounting that resonated in me, like the sound of a hard downshift into a hairpin on the Col du Petit St Bernard with Matt Monroe playing in the background.

It was one of those ever so rare experiences where you feel like you’ve connected. Cynthia Renée is exactly what Seth Godin described in Lynchpin, an artist that gives the gift of more than is expected and certainly more than is required just because that is what she is all about.

She gave us a lot more than just a stone and mounting. Cynthia took my crazy, ephemeral idea and created a one of a kind gift to me, and in turn a gift to my wife that brought tears and an expression on her face as she opened that ring box that I will treasure forever.”