What I Found in the Boxes

When my father ran this studio, there was no audience. There was no feed to post, no comment for reply, and no metric told him whether what he made or thought mattered. There was the bench, the stones, the heat, and the jewels.

After he was gone, I took over his bench and rebuilt the studio. I found the notes.

Some clearly written to himself, small pieces of paper among the tools, some slipped inside envelopes with nothing on the outside, some folded into the lids of boxes. Observations about thinking. About the difference between what he called counterfeit thought and honest thought. About the way a certain kind of flattery, even self-flattery, is corrosive if you let it get too near the work.

Some were written to the machines. He wrote instructions to the kiln, to the polishing wheel, to the torch: Please hold 1350° for two hours. Thank you. He said please. He said thank you. You are alone with these tools and machines more than you are alone with any person, and courtesy is simply the right way to be in any company, mechanical or otherwise.

And then there were the notes from Charles to Vivienne. Small cards inside small cigar boxes, each one holding stones he set aside. Stones too beautiful for the ordinary flow of work. Vivienne was his wife, my mother. Both artists. Both, at one time, at the bench. He wrote to her the way you write to someone who understands exactly what you mean before you finish saying it. The most beautiful stones were for her. The most extravagant ideas were for her. His best of the best had only one address.

He did not always get to the magnificent projects. Some of those boxes are still here. The stones are now being used for you in our vintage stones and one-of-a-kind collections.

These are the thoughts that live in the solitary part of making. Thoughts about work, about honesty, about patience, about the strange companionship of beautiful materials. Still true, still worth saying.

From Charles to you.