Hi, I’m Danielle, and you’ve stumbled upon my website for antique and ancient jewelry, Topazius! Let me tell you a little about this site, and about myself…
About Topazius
(What’s “topazius”? Read on.)
I guess the idea for this blog really came from this article, which had been sitting (completely unwritten) in my drafts at Many Faceted for, oh, 18 months. I wanted to talk about my passion for old jewelry, but somehow the words never came out, it wasn’t the right time… or the right place. Many Faceted was focused on my own adventures with gemology and jewelry; as such, it was more of a personal blog. I wanted to write more articles, and a separate site seemed the best solution!
As for the “visual archive”, a few months back I revisited an article on digital sharecropping — if you use social media or produce online content, give it a read — and it brought to mind all the extensive research I do on Pinterest. The possibility of losing control of the images, information and source links, simply because they weren’t on a site I own, set me thinking of starting my own research archive. I won’t necessarily back up EVERYTHING I pin, but it gives me a way to save the jewelry that interests me the most, while allowing me to add alternate images, more source links and info, etc. (Also, I can tag everything and organize it better. Hooray!)
Since I’m researching all this old jewelry anyway, why not write articles while I’m at it? Blogging seems a natural extension of what I already love doing. I hope you enjoy it!
About me
My name is Danielle Rose. I’m a graphic designer by day, gemologist and jewelry maker by night, and I love old jewelry. I was trying to define my taste in jewelry one night, and the line “that belongs in a museum” popped into my head…
Panama Hat: Small world, Dr. Jones.
Indiana Jones: Too small for two of us.
Panama Hat: This is the second time I’ve had to reclaim my property from you.
Indiana Jones: That belongs in a museum.
Panama Hat: So do you.
(Such a great movie.) Anyway, film quotes aside, I love a lot of styles and periods from jewelry history, both ancient and antique. My favorites include Etruscan, Byzantine, Anglo-Saxon, Revival, Art Nouveau, Edwardian, and Art Deco.
* All is vanity.
(Or, what’s the quote on the front page?)
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which it may be said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.
— Ecclesiastes 1:9-11
I quoted part of the above on the front page, because I really believe it to be true. Fashion (including jewelry) moves in cycles, things come in and go out and come back in again. (Clearly, if the awful fashions of the 1980s can come back into vogue, anything can come back.)
Also, truly, “there is no remembrance of former things”; fashion seems always to look forward, to the new, to the next. Once something is “out”, it’s gone (until it comes back.) There’s so much in the history of jewelry to love and celebrate, and my hope is to rekindle the remembrance of former things with this website!