Topography
Inspired by contour maps, this necklace, from our style family of contemporary sculpturals brings together moonstone, banded agate, zebra jasper and freshwater pearl beads to create a landscape that is striking and distinctive. For someone drawn to graphic design and a monochrome palette, this is a necklace that makes a statement through form, texture and composition. For more info on the necklace, please click on Details, and if interested in my musings, please go to Story. Perhaps you may also like to explore the style family to which this necklace belongs in our blog on The Style Families of Manik’s Necklaces
The identification of the beads starts from the bead in the centre, moving upwards, with measurement for some of the bigger beads, with metal beads named last.
Length: 68.5 cm (27”)
Weight: 184 gms
Moonstone: 14 mm
Agate barrels: 13mm high by 13 mm wide
Grey freshwater pearls: 10 mm
Zebra jasper nuggets: approx. 19 to 24 mm long, and 13 to 15 mm at its widest
Korean jade (serpentine): 10 mm
Gold filled crimps tubes, silver toggle clasp.
I was playing around with the short agte barrels, placing them next to the zebra jasper nuggets, and was reminded of the contour maps that I had to draw in geography lessons in secondary school. Geography wasn’t one of my favourite subjects, but I did manage to do the contour maps reasonably well, and I thought it would be fun to design a necklace around the concept of contour maps, leveraging on the agate and zebra jasper beads.
Getting the design right involved changing many of the beads around many times so that they were compatible with each other, and visually attractive overall. I needed a third kind of bead to ease up on the black and grey, and found it in these 14 mm slightly greyish-white moonstone. The smaller grey freshwater pearls were a happy afterthought – I liked the idea of adding delicate pearls to a rather ‘strong’ necklace, and the grey colour fits in. I also decided against spacers, as I wanted a tighter feel for the necklace overall.
You won’t be surprised to know that I am naming this necklace Topography. I think that Topography would work well with strong brights including orange, fuchsia or apple green, for example, but it should suit softer hues such as light grey, soft blue too. Enjoy!
