“I help people tell their story, written in the language of jewels.”

TELL YOUR STORY WITH A UNIQUE JEWEL.

Have you had those fleeting moments in life when you experienced an unusually profound insight, a feeling of connectedness or intimacy? It’s as if a curtain is pulled back, showing us the deeper workings of life. Then, it’s over, and we’re back to everyday life once more. I call these luminescent moments “Blue Pearl Moments.”

With my clients, I create jewelry commemorating their Blue Pearl Moments. A talismanic piece of fine jewelry can capture a story or feeling, which can then be returned to again and again … even by future generations.

When a client wanting custom jewelry comes to me, I think of how we can tell her story leaving clues about the wearer as the heirloom jewel is passed through generations. The client may not come thinking of a specific story, but there is always one…

FEATURED PROJECTS

HOW IT BEGINS

We start with a free 20-minute design consultation, over Skype or phone, where we can talk, ask questions, learn about each other and see if we are a fit. It is normal for you to come to this conversation not exactly sure of what you are looking for. Cynthia can usually fairly quickly get a sense of what you’re needing and offer the best direction to take in providing you what you need. There is no commitment on your part after our call.

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A first-time male client shares his experience with Cynthia.

“Just about a year after I had asked Cynthia Renée to create an engagement ring, I was reading Seth Godin’s book, Lynchpin. One of his comments about great art and artists made me sit up and say out loud: ‘Hey, that is exactly Cynthia.’ ”

Paraphrasing a bit, here’s what Seth said about great artists: “…they have an intrinsic understanding of the stone in their hands. They can touch and see exactly where the best lines are; they know. The greatest artists do just that. They see and understand the challenges before them, without carrying the baggage of expectations or attachment. …they see the what is possible.”

This is a perfect description of the understanding and insight and art that Cynthia brings to her jewelry…

READ THE STORY

“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.”