Warm Sea Fan Small Earrings by Merzatta Jewelry
Small teardrops of sea fan drop from French hooks.
Dimensions: 1" long x 0.5" wide.
Materials: Warm bronze with sterling silver French ear wires.
SEA FAN JEWELRY COLLECTION
This collection makes the fragile, lace-like structure of sea fan coral permanent, transforming the delicate organic structure into brilliant precious metal. This coral was collected from the beach of Mustique Island, where it had washed up on shore and dried in the sun. We cast small pieces of this natural wonder, allowing the intricate form to shine.
Merzatta all started when one of us picked up a single piece of sea fan coral from a beach on Mustique in the Caribbean Grenadines. We could see that nature had created a beautiful piece of jewelry, and when we cast it, we were so dazzled that we began to create even bigger swaths of these delicate undersea fans – wide enough to dangle from the ear or wrap around a wrist, while still preserving both the delicate organic structure, and the curves and twists of the way this coral dances with the currents.
Handmade by Danielle and Chris Merzatta of Merzatta Jewelry in Morristown, New Jersey.
Collect, curate, carve, cast, combine, create.
Our process begins with Collecting. We are constantly looking at the world around us to find what isn't easy to see—to discover something waiting to be discovered. Our store is full of little bits of adventures -- ours and yours. Some of our most beautiful forms were sent to us in packages from around the world by people who believe in this work.
We Curate those organic collections, sorting through to find the moments that might sing. And then we Carve, carefully moving towards an interior or hollowing out towards the outside. The pieces are carefully Cast into gold, sterling or bronze in a process very similar to the 'Lost Wax Process', an ancient practice of creating forms from structures. We work by covering the organic material in a plaster-like investment, and then putting it in a hot oven that burns the original away—an 'Organic Burn Out.' This leaves a cavity behind in the investment that is exactly the shape of what was once there. Molten metal is poured into that cavity to trap a copy of the original so that everything that was once pinecone, for example, is now sterling.
We work with parts made in this way, integrating them, fabricating them, editing them and Combining them, until we build a new language of forms. Those forms are often made in multiple and the units collect themselves into chains, bracelets, rings, earrings, and more. One collar necklace in our collection has 100 pieces of pinecone; another has 36 pieces of sea fan. Yet, one piece can hang as a stunning pendant allowing the story to be told in a single visual expression.
When a form we Create has become a piece of jewelry that we love to share again and again, it joins our Core Collection. Many of those pieces are available in solid gold. When we take small elements of those pieces, and mix them with one of a kind stones? Those pieces are the Palette Collections.
These collections have built slowly over 15 years of careful artisanship and inquiry - and with your input and support, it is a collection we will build for years to come.
Merzatta releases new one of a kind pieces in a rolling series of seven landscape inspired color palettes. These distinctly different color palettes unfold with the seasons and represent how we see calendar the year, and how we see the world.
In addition, we maintain a Core Organics Collection library of open edition, available at any time pieces in a series of 11 core organic forms. These pieces are the beating heart of Merzatta are designed to wear, to gift, and to build upon one another.
We began as a love story. Chris shocked us both when he proposed out of nowhere and the spark in that moment started Merzatta. We began working together on a private island in the Caribbean, on an architecture build so impressive that it had a six-page spread in Vogue when it finally finished a few years later. Mid-build, as the American economy tanked and part of our crew was cut, Chris and I returned to my hometown in New Jersey with few job prospects in architecture or the arts and expecting our daughter five months later. We were in love, talented, and broke, and found inspiration while staying busy together during the 2009 recession. Unemployment had a fixed deadline, but self-employment was a state of mind.
We had innocently collected pine cones and corals on the beaches of the island, and in this new predicament began carving and casting them, discovering new ways to see the forms and then moving those into metal. We set up a jewelry studio in our apartment and five weeks after Laurily's birth, in the fall of 2010, we showed our first collection at the home of a neighbor. We took the momentum from that night and exhibited at our first Art Fair in 2010. In 2016, we were awarded the Outstanding Professionals in the Arts Award for Morris County, in large part for successfully starting an arts business in midst of the recession. We moved our studio to professional space in Morristown in 2018, and opened a showroom a few blocks away in 2019. Years later, we're as eager as ever to be part of your evolving jewelry story.
We're committed to continuing to help you celebrate your milestones with exceptional objects that will last a lifetime and beyond. Your celebrations, your choices to honor yourself, and your gift exchanges are the honor of our lifetimes. We know that these moments - where humans stand in front of each other, or in front of a mirror, and declare their love - represent the foundations of our most generous acts and our most brave declarations.
It is never, ever just jewelry. It's a firm belief that the objects we honor say something about what we believe in, and that those beliefs when strengthened and supported with talismans and community, make the world a better place.
Find more Merzatta Jewelry here.
