Blue, green and coral-colored dangle earrings on detail of painting

What Inspired the Color Field Collection?

I remember the original Mary Poppins — the moment the characters jump into the chalk painting on the sidewalk. That's how I feel when I stand in front of certain paintings at my local art museum. Like I'm entering a whole other world. And the more color, the better. 

Color. It's irresistible.

My favorite paintings?

By the Color Field artists — Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and others whose work in pure color has the power to change my mood. To lift me up. To transport me.  

That other world I just mentioned. 

I haven't had the lifestyle to own any of these artworks, but I lived with a reproduction for years — a large framed image that kept me company on the dining room wall of my first home. That painting: Helen Frankenthaler's landmark Mountains and Sea (1952).

Something about the movement in her abstract forms was soothing and lyrical. And the colors — just luscious. 

Decades later, that piece no longer lives on my walls, but I see it in family photos, and I remember how it felt to look at it. Revisiting it in my art books still evokes the same pleasure.

Palette cleanser?

It was many years after discovering Mountains and Sea that I fell in love with Frankenthaler's more intense palettes. Elberta (1975), with its range of orange hues and slivers of purplish blue. Plexus (1976), another example of that same intensity with its stunning reds, silvery blues, and touches of deep green.

As for Rothko, my response to his paintings is visceral. Immediate. Like a hit of dark chocolate — but longer lasting, without the impact to my waistline.

Distinct regions of color. Subtle blending and banding. And so evocative of my favorite unusual gemstones.  

The imagery in my home reflects this passion for color. Deep reds, beautiful blues, and fiery orange dominate my walls. Plenty of black and white, too. And I'm fortunate to be surrounded by stacks of art books collected over the years, so I can visit these artists whenever I like. 

Is it any wonder that I reach for gemstones with the same affinities?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up — I'll tell you what Color Field painting is about. Once you see it, you'll understand exactly why I chose the gemstones I did.

What Color Field is all about

Stunning swaths of color, hues blending into each other, canvases that invite us to experience them rather than analyze or interpret. This is why I fell in love with the Color Field movement — an offshoot of abstract expressionism, the dominant painting movement of mid 20th century America.

One look at inky iolite and shimmering sunstone grown together in a single polished pebble.

One look at Botswana agate in deep rose leaning apricot leaning coral with a whisper of banding.

One look at the stripes of soft cocoa and cream, and wedgewood to light cerulean in banded blue opal.

Nature's handiwork. No color enhancements. How do we not see Rothko and Frankenthaler?

The distinction

So what distinguishes color field painting from abstract expressionism?

Color field paintings are purely abstract, often minimalist, generally large scale works that rely on a variety of techniques including thin washes of color and staining — color as an exploration, color intended to evoke a visceral reaction. 

While color field paintings are typically less frenetic than abstract expressionist works — think Jackson Pollock's action paintings — that doesn’t mean that the colors are tame. Far from it. No one could term Rothko's canvases mellow, and the same would be said of Frankenthaler's palette.

If anything, brilliant hues, some that might seem to clash with each other, meet and blend in flat surfaces that can, for some of us, create a spiritual experience. The breath catches. You hold it. Then you exhale, immersed in the pleasure of the sensation.

This is what I feel when I look at Elberta, and why iolite-sunstone stopped me cold the first time I saw it.  

The gemstones: iolite-sunstone

These remarkable iolite-sunstones are irregular in shape, and of course, unpredictable in their patterning, so matching them, in particular for earrings, is a labor of love.

To me, they're worth it. And every time I'm working with them, I'm brought back to Elberta.

The gemstones: banded blue opal

Anytime I've traveled to a new place and visited the local museum, if there are Rothkos, I find myself standing and just breathing them in. Feeling them. The pleasure of the colors. The way one moves into the next, or sits in surprising opposition. 

And then there's this: banded blue opal. When I first saw its striped regions of color, it was like a little Rothko tribute in soft browns, creams and blues.

The gemstones: pinkish Botswana agate

Speaking of Rothko and color banding, Botswana agate comes to mind. But for me, it's not the Botswana agate we're used to seeing, which is lovely, but... when I saw some of the rarer hues? I fell in love with them. Dusty pink, pinkish apricot, coral, pinkish red, reddish brown. Some stones with the signature banding we expect, but many with just a hint of it as we focus on the way one hue bleeds into the next.

So Rothko!

Again, matching irregular stones to make earrings is seriously challenging, and part of why certain designs are truly one of a kind, or significantly limited in number. But seeing, holding, and working with these stones, it's all worth it. 

And wearing them? You can feel how special they are.

The paintings: Mountains and Sea

Rothko isn't the only one these stones evoke. The range of colors in pinkish Botswana agate, even within a single stone, especially in marquise shapes, brings me back to Mountains and Sea (1952).  

But Mountains and Sea is more than a wash of pinks and apricots. There are soft greens and watery blues. That's where chrysoprase, aquamarine and amazonite come from in my designs. Every color, tracing back to the painting. And the jewelry itself, I hope, carries some of that — the lightness, the happiness even.

The paintings: Plexus

Plexus is an interesting word. It's all about blood vessels, nerves, a network of interwoven parts — something energized, pulsing, alive. Which is exactly how I feel looking at Frankenthaler’s painting of that name.

It's also the feeling I was reaching for in the pieces I designed to capture it. Deep reddish Botswana agate in faceted nuggets. Devil's aquamarine with its almost North Atlantic blue and inner glow. Bright green chrome diopside, faceted, bookending the aquamarine. And the rich cinnamon depth of hessonite garnet. 

The synergy of vibrant green against saturated blue. Reds and pinks, just as vital. There is alchemy in these stones. The very alchemy that lives in Plexus.

So much to love! (Stay tuned)

There are other color field painters I admire, but it's Rothko and Frankenthaler who dance in my head. And then there are the abstract expressionists I love — Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell. Their magic lives in gemstones, too. Or is it the other way around?

 

Jewelry shown above:

Images referenced from art books (above):

  • Detail from: Helen Frankenthaler, Elberta (1975), acrylic on canvas; p. 502, History of Modern Art, H. H. Arnason, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1986.
  • Detail from: Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon (1959); p. 156, Mark Rothko, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York, 1996.
  • Detail from: Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea (1952); p. 29, Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Marsilio Arte, New York/Venice, 2024.
  • Detail from: Helen Frankenthaler, Plexus (1976); p. 134, Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Marsilio Arte, New York/Venice, 2024.
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