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A ring of endless plight

November 24, 2005 at 4:24 AM

But after 13 years of marriage, I realized that the diamond Robert gave me is a permanent fixture and I'd best not constantly be cursing it!

Why would I curse the beautiful ring Robert gave me so many years ago? Because it's been a damned nuisance! When he got it, we were quite penniless. It was in the middle of graduate school, during those days when we occasionally had to buy groceries on credit cards.

He (with assistance from American Express) sprang for a beautiful stone, which I always have loved. But it was set really, really high, on a skinny gold band, with six prongs that constantly bent askew. It caught on everything – sweaters, coats, my hair. It scratched my kids. It always had some piece of fuzz clinging to a prong, remnants from whatever it had last snagged.

For several years now, Robert has urged, "Oh, honey, just go get it re-set!"

So after asking varous friends over several years, I got a recommendation for a jeweler which sounded promising, Sixty East in Old Town Pasadena.

I worried that any jeweler would peg me as "not a bling-bling girl, not someone with serious cash" and dismiss me outright. But the shopkeeper, Marcus, greeted me warmly and without pretension.

"What is it you're looking for in a new setting?" Marcus asked.

Busted! I had no idea.

"I want it to be lower," I said, "and...I want to really like it!"

He paused. "Why don't you look around at what we have," he said politely, "and see if there's anything you like?"

I looked for some time, and I didn't like anything. I slowly walked back over to Marcus.

"You know," I stammered, "It's all rather chunky and geometrical. I'm really more of a curvy girl. I like shapes more like..." and I started drawing curlicues in the air.

He seemed mildly puzzled, amused, and yet still wanting to help.

"Do you have some paper?" I asked. He did. "More like.." and I drew a pleasant and familiar shape, "f "

"See, it's a curvy shape. That's actually a shape from my violin," I explained, "Actually, I like all the shapes on my violin; I'm a violinist."

"A violinist?" he said with interest. "Our designer plays the guitar."

"You know," he continued, "I think we might have some designs with sort of a scroll." He flipped through a book of ring designs. "Or, we could do something custom. One time, someone came in who really loved sea otters. So we made her a sea otter ring!"

I shuddered.

"Maybe we could do a violin-inspired ring!" Marcus said enthusiastically.

I suddenly flashed back to disturbing images from the past: piano scarves, a big plastic violin music box, a ceramic pig playing the violin, a purple pencil crudely bent into a fiddle shape.

"Um," I hesitated.

But Marcus was on fire, doodling furiously.

Hmmm. Though I could not quite fathom what his idea was, I could recognize the fact that he was inspired. He quite clearly had an idea.

"Here's what we can do," Marcus said. "I'll have our designer work on this, and then we can e-mail you our ideas."

That sounded safe enough to me...with the possibility of yielding something interesting.

After a few days, I got an e-mail, and here's what they came up with:

I love it! Without reservation, I really do. It's elegant and unless you are a violinist (okay, 50 percent of my friends are), you probably won't see that those shapes are f-holes, scrolls and bridges. Even the little heart, inspired by a picture of a Stradivarius bridge, is subtle, not like a big, glaring Valentine. And there are two of everything but the diamond, which centers it all.

It's one-of-a-kind. And I'll never want to curse it again!

They design it on the computer and actually have some kind of a fancy computerized machine that makes the wax mold, as I understand it.

I don't want to say what it cost! Just that it was quite reasonable, especially for something so unique that I like so much. It was less than we thought it would be.

Music Giveaway

Mark O'Connor's method books -- released this week -- teach students using many styles of American music. Enter to win a set of the books this week, on Violinist.com. Photo: Deanna Rose

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Laurie Niles is from Pasadena, California. Biography

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