Not Your Grandmother's Bling
Photography: Jill Orschel
Alix Railton wants your grandmother’s jewelry. Or the wedding ring from your first marriage. Or the wedding ring from your current marriage, which—let’s face it—you never really liked that much.
“Your style isn’t necessarily the same as your grandmother’s,” Railton says, “though your sentiment might be. Why should a vintage piece sit unworn in the bottom of your jewelry box? My passion is taking things that have sentimental value for people and turning them into pieces of jewelry that have practical value, too ... jewelry they’ll enjoy every day.”
A jeweler for 15 of her 20 years in Park City, Railton’s interest in giving old jewelry new life comes from her penchant for listening. “I love being allowed to hear people’s stories: about their families, their relationships, their lost loved ones. In return, I try to honor that story by transforming their old jewelry into remembrances they can wear on their finger or neck or wrist.”
Some examples of reincarnated bling: one Park City woman came to Railton with a huge family sapphire and said, “I want you to turn this into a ring that I can garden in.” Railton crafted the gem into a high bezel setting that protects the stone yet still fits under gardening gloves. For another client, she took apart a 16-inch-long strand of her grandmother’s pearls and restrung it into two shorter strands, using pink and green silk, and then distributed an assortment of stone beads throughout to complete a subtly colorful necklace that’s not just for special occasions.
Designing custom wedding rings is a particular passion of Railton’s. She recently formed a new wedding ring from a client’s grandmother’s and mother’s wedding rings as well as the ring from the client’s first marriage, incorporating a sapphire earring (its mate had been lost) and a band of tiny diamonds the client owned, creating a unique three-generational heirloom. One local woman was so pleased with Railton’s remodel of her 20-year-old wedding band that she said, “Now I love the ring as much as I love the man.”
Of course, Railton creates fresh-from-scratch jewelry also, but she uses exclusively recycled metals and is diligent about where her stones come from, avoiding “conflict diamonds.” She describes her work as “a little organic. Handmade, not machine-processed. I like choosing stones that are off the beaten path, such as yellow sapphire, jaspers, agate or rutilated quartz. I think they’re intriguing and beautiful in their own right—and affordable.”
She gets her inspiration for design in many ways. “I love the happy accidents that occur in my messy studio. I’ll drop a stone next to another and suddenly realize what a great color combination it is. I also like to play ‘jeweler’s roulette.’ I read an article in the New York Times about a woman who got tired of cooking the same old thing, so she would reach into her pantry and compel herself to use whatever she picked out without looking. I do that with stones. I’ll pick one up with my eyes closed, and then challenge myself to work with it. I’ll let it speak to me. Then I’ll put it down on a blank pad and start drawing around it.
“I’m always looking around me for new ideas. The curve of a pebble, the interesting shape of a piece of bark, even the tab from a soda can are interesting shapes to me. I like those townhomes in Newpark because they look a little sideways. They inspired me to do a series of stick pendants that I called ‘Not So Straight.’ They were kind of Dr. Seussy. I like to have some whimsy in my work, some levity. I try not to take myself too seriously, and I don’t want people to take my work too seriously, either.”
Asked about the practicality of wearing jewelry regularly in a town where many folks go to coffee shops in PJs or run errands in sweaty mountain-biking shorts, Railton says, “Listen: I think pearls and jeans go really well together. I put my jewelry on every day. I twist and touch my bracelets and enjoy how they feel warm on my wrists. If you own something, you should use it. I’m not a big fan of the kind of jewelry that has to sit in a vault. I make jewelry that you’ll wear every day.”
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