Manifesto

Six lights

While the world echoes, here, only the form of light remains. The drawing precedes the metal.

Imperial green jadeite on black velvet

Darkness arrives first. After velvet has swallowed the other reflections, green is allowed. Imperial green, if it deserves the name, is water pressed slowly: clear, and still with a spine. The spine is the grain of the crystal. Side light is honest. Cotton, veins and fissures, if they are there, stay. A-jade is not perfection. It is the absence of a polymer fill. Thickness lets light pause. Gold follows only the rim.

A diamond line in a dark field

A diamond does not make light. It returns what is already there, and divides the colours. A dark field keeps that return from being washed into mere brightness. A line of stones should be a river without noise. Crown and pavilion are written down so the path of light can be checked. Gold stays thin enough to be a riverbed.

A ruby on basalt

Basalt is cold and unwilling. Against it, red learns how red it is. The hue we mean is narrow: little orange, little purple, still transparent inside. Heat is written as heat. Prongs stay thin so red arrives before gold. Oversaturated red on a screen is a failure.

A South Sea pearl in morning mist

A pearl does not refract. It spreads light. South Sea white is large, usually thick in nacre, with rose, silver or a faint gold orient. Lustre either slides or stops in a haze. Roundness is not the start. Undyed is the default. A pearl is organic, and luxury here includes admitting that it ages.

Cornflower sapphire on silk

Silk has a weave. Cornflower blue should not go grey in daylight and should not slide into ink. We may describe the hue. We do not sign an origin for the laboratory. Cold blue meets warm gold only at the edge. Heat is stated. Pavé is not asked to turn the blue into a decoration.

Copper-bearing tourmaline on black silk

Copper in tourmaline can be an impolite blue-green. If the neon is a filter, the shadows become paint. Real electric colour still has an interior on black silk. Brazil, Mozambique and Nigeria can look alike. The name Paraíba is used only when a report supports it. Otherwise we write copper-bearing tourmaline. Few prongs. The simulator shows a temper. It does not replace the stone.