Newsletter

Seasonal greetings are the order of the day. Celebrations abound in the Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas festivities. The island is gripped in feverish party preparation. And a more perfect time of the year we can’t wish for. Gloriously breezy days keep us cool and buoyant. The rising moon casting dreamy shadows over the studio. Life is beautiful.

And so was or trip to the States. We had loads of fun and interesting experiences. What bliss to be travelling on an open road…..3800 miles. Swallowing up those miles, as if they didn’t exist. And our overall mission was successful too. We loved Delray Beach in Florida, very quaint and somehow a reminder of the Simpson Bay village feel. Now we have to tackle the mountain of paperwork and visa applications in the next 6 months.

On our return we took care of the inevitable “spring cleaning” and maintenance work. Hans is also working on some chunky art pieces, which require casting. This is what the waxes look like and then after they have been cast.


The master ring waxes before casting	And after the cast. The gems fits…after taking shrinkage into account

Gears for the Dino Machine. A difficult cast that came out perfect	And the completed Dino machine. More about him on the blog

Isn’t this show stopper chain just stunning? Our all time favourite blued titanium pared with 14ct yellow gold.

Most of the road works around the airport, bridge, Cay Hill round-about and road over the hill have been completed. Some, more successful than others. The new round-about recorded its first major truck-trailer accident, two weeks after commissioning. Fortunately the driver managed to crash the runaway truck on its side in the centre of the circle, without endangering other road users. From our studio vantage point it does not look like the Cay Hill round-about has made much of a difference to alleviate traffic. Traffic still tends to crawl from 15h00 onwards. Also, remember that the bridge openings changed for high season to 09h00, then 09h30, again at 11h00 and 11h30 and later openings at 16h30 and 17h30. It is quite a tap dance to run errands in the morning and be back before the 11h00 bridge opening.

Lapierre’s Marble, the premier marble supplier in the Caribbean moved into their new premises at the Hope Industrial Estate near French Cul-de-Sac. They had an opening celebration, also featuring sculptures of various artists covering the modern industrial genre. What stood out was the “Shoal of Fish” sculpture by Douglas Hazelton. The sculpture covers a shower head which has optical fibre lights inside (pictured below).

Speaking of the Hope Estate. Bacchus is a large wine warehouse which has an underground wine cellar and also a small restaurant serving lunches. The lunch there was spectacular albeit on the high end scale. Worth every penny. To cater for all tastes, you will find choices of traditional or eclectic French dishes prepared with complete detail and a delightful harmony of flavours. This is definitely a place worth considering, especially on a rainy day, if it’s hard to relinquish an afternoon on the beach.

The dish pictures on the right, is seared scallops topped with smoked duck breast on a salad of asparagus, herbs and beetroot vinaigrette. On the left is veal cheek which was a special of the day.

The other great restaurant news is that Lal’s Curry in a Hurry moved to within walking distance of us, just behind Gourmet Marche on the parking lot side. Now life is really perfect. We visited him on opening night and (many) times since.

Do have a look at Destination, the in-flight magazine, which is also widely distributed on island. Destination wrote an article on us, the studio and our jewelry designs. It is a double page spread, which is a major scoop for us. They wrote a superb article. Thank you, Destination. Email us if you would like a copy of the article.

Popcorn and his bud have been re-designing their abode, adding a much needed skylight. We hope you too are cocooned in and comfortable. We wish you an exciting and prosperous 2010 and hope to see you soon.