What We've Been Up To

We have just made available a small collection of new designs on our website and catalog. One of my favorites is a necklace with either 8mm serpentine beads in a beautiful yellowy green or very simple cable link chain. The unusal clasp, which we developed, features two intertwining hearts. We call it the “Heart To Heart” necklace.

Check out this and other new designs in the Jewelry Specials section of our online store and for a short time we giving free Priority Mail shipping with any order containing a “New Arrivals”.

Why I Don't Do The Boogaloo No Mo

JH Breakell and Company has been through a lot in over thirty years of business, but in the mid-1990s we came up against our biggest challenge--one that forced us to make some fundamental changes. My eyesight started to degenerate due to a genetic condition known simply as PXE (short for pseudoxanthoma elasticum). Over time PXE causes your vision, especially close-up vision, to deteriorate to the point where you literally cannot see what is in front of you, only what is to the side or periphery!


Naturally I could no longer work directly at my craft, much less drive a car or read a book. But you know vision loss did have some funny benefits, despite the grief I felt. I spent more time organizing the way we ran the business end of JH Breakell. I ensured that our silversmiths learned as much as possible because I could no longer “do it all” anymore. Finally, my wife Joan, who was also my business partner, was able to (well, had to) jump into the creative end of things in ways she never dreamed (see Joan's previous blog post “Put me in, Coach”).


So as my fine vision wound down, I gradually moved from chief designer, model maker and master craftsman to business manager and CEO of JH Breakell & Co. My time was no longer divided and I could focus on building the business. The last piece I designed and made from scratch--I took it from a pencil sketch to ready-to-wear jewelry--was the Downwind Pin. It’s still in the line and going strong. While I'm not able to create sketches and models myself anymore, I still work closely with Joan and the rest of the team to come up with new design ideas. So we continue to create pieces in the distinctive style JH Breakell has been developing since 1972. And in my new role, I've been able to move the company forward with new tools like the website (and this blog).

Sometimes change can be cataclysmic and positive at the same time.

How We Make Byzantine Chain

A Little History

Put me in, Coach

When I joined Jim at J.H. Breakell & Co a couple of years after we got married, my job was making sure our customers were happy and our checkbook was balanced. Advertising, payroll, shipping, window washing and lunch-making were also my department. Occasionally, I’d sketch a design that Jim would use to carve a model. I loved seeing my Straw Hat and Hippopotamus transformed from two dimensional sketches into detailed wax carvings and finally into silver and gold. I wasn’t exactly making jewelry, but it was exciting to be part of the creative process. It would be a few years before I had a chance to see how far I could take that.

In 1994, Jim began having problems with his vision. We were told that a rare retinal disease would gradually rob him of his ability to see fine details and slowly, over several years, it did. Eventually, it was clear that someone else would have to carve models for our lost wax cast designs and that someone was me. I was thrilled and at the same time terrified. But mostly terrified.

Funny thing is, Jim never doubted I could do it, he just assumed I could. As it turns out that’s very powerful motivation. My first “from scratch” design was the Feather Pin. The carving wasn’t nearly as good as Jim’s would have been and it took way too long to finish but I felt like a door had opened to another world- and it was fun! Jim is a gifted teacher. He doesn’t hover and he expects you to ask questions if you want information. He encourages experimentation and he’s generous with both advice and criticism, a delicate balance when your student is also your wife. That said, this method of instruction had its ups and downs. I’m not a silversmith, so the tools of the trade were a complete mystery. I made my first few models using two or three tiny files and a drill before I started asking the right questions and poking around drawers filled with tools. Before long, I made the Lily of the Valley, my favorite flower, and it’s still one of my favorites after all these years.

Designing The Sun Sign

One of my blog “followers” asked about the design process at JH Breakell and suggested I write a little about it. Well, sometimes its truly inspired and sometimes its more pedestrian. What follows is fairly typical of our “process”.

About twice a year we work on new pieces, usually coinciding with the publication of new catalogs Which season we’re designing for i.e. Fall/Winter or Spring/Summer, and then start thinking about what we would like to offer our customers. Last spring we wanted something unequivocally “summer” so I started working on a sun image.



It started with a bunch of rough pencil sketches, they evolved into more detailed sketches and then that design was put to metal, either by cutting and fabricating or carving wax and casting. Finally the finished, original design is molded for production and our “run” of the design in either Sterling Silver or 14 karat gold, but very often both.

Last year’s “Sun Sign” pendant, earrings and pin are a good example of this process. It started with a vision of a slightly psychedelic version of a summer sun and evolved through a series of sketches to the design you see on our website. Sun Sign Pendant Eventually we made earrings, a charm and a pin using the same theme.

This is admittedly a very brief explanatioin, but it is typical of the steps we go through in creating new pieces of jewelry. We also draw a lot of inspiration from ideas our customers suggest. What would you like to see? We would love to hear from you. Leave us your idea in a comment.

Lost in Negative Space

In metal smithing we call designs with open areas cut into a pattern “piercing”. It usually involves careful thought, a lot of tricky cutting with a jeweler’s saw and much patience. I always loved piercing. I enjoyed the methodical process of drilling, setting the blade and the way the metal pieces fall away as you cut and the pattern emerges in the silver. But I always had a hell of a time figuring out the design because I had to think in terms of “negative space”. In other words the design was developed by thinking about what wasn’t there as opposed to what was there.

This serving set (A), which I made many years ago, is a good example of the process. Piercing, like most decorative steps, is done near the end of the project. I made the serving set almost completely before I set about to pierce out the spoon’s bowl. Piercing before forming the bowl and fabricating the handle socket and ebony handle could have resulted in the bowl shape becoming deformed as it is hammered into shape.

So the pattern for the piercing had to be carefully planned and laid out prior to any cutting. Failure to plan properly could result in days of labor creating the serving set being wasted if the pierced pattern, cut into the finished piece, wound up uneven or distorted because of poor planning. I spent a lot time sketching possible patterns. Here are a few sketches (B) I found in my design book from the 1970’s. You can see that I did not use this exact pattern for my final piercing but this will give you an idea of how the design is derived on paper before cutting begins.

Another reason for not piercing a piece before it is nearly complete is that the work always takes on a shape and character which may not have been planned for so the silversmith must be sure that the decoration chosen is in harmony with the final shape and proportion of the finished piece.