A Palette of Gems: Paula Crevoshay

Bringing a painter’s eye to her designs, this award-winning jewelry artist harmonizes hues to capture nature’s spectacular light and color.

When Paula Crevoshay was growing up, her artistic medium was the canvas. From early childhood, she displayed enormous talent. Later, she turned to jewelry, and her palette moved from colorful oils to vibrant gemstones.

“Painting with gems means my palette encompasses the light of the earth itself,” she says. Drawing on nature for inspiration, she uses the principles of fine art to transform this light into exquisite, one-of-a-kind jewelry.

Insects are a common motif as seen in the colorful “Indigo” dragonfly brooch in 18K gold featuring opal, apatite, iolite, tanzanite, tsavorite, and pink and fuchsia sapphires. — Indigo dragonfly brooch in 18-karat gold featuring opal, apatite, iolite, tanzanite, tsavorite, and pink and fuchsia sapphires.

Flora and fauna
Crevoshay’s bountiful garden of jewels blooms with gem-encrusted flowers in realistic and stylistic designs and magnificent bursts of color. Frequenting this botanical paradise are delicate insects and exotic birds, with a few mystical beings thrown in for good measure. From the depths, sea creatures transform into intriguing brooches, rings, and earrings, all made with the finest gemstones and set in 18-karat gold.

While her creations are distinctly recognizable, she is not limited to one style; her approach adapts to the subject. Her latest works stem from her concern for Earth’s endangered species. Her lions, tigers, elephants and wolves evoke the subtle and sacred balance in the evolution of life.

“It’s beautiful how interconnected and interdependent it all is, and how living things are fragile. Yet life is imbued with great tenacity,” she says.

With her sensitivity to color, Crevoshay harmonizes secondary and tertiary colors along with the standard primary ones. Her intuitive use of light refraction and play of color also allows new hues to emerge from gems, ones that might not otherwise be noticeable. This gives her jewels a subtlety of beauty in both complementary and contrasting colors far beyond the ordinary, earning her the affectionate title “Queen of Color.”

endangered animal close to Paula’s heart is the ocelot, epitomized in “Babu” in 18K gold set with peridot and diamonds (white, black and champagne). — An endangered animal close to Paula Crevoshay’s heart is the ocelot, epitomized in Babu in 18-karat gold set with peridot and white, black and champagne diamonds.

Leading by example
Those fortunate enough to own a Crevoshay piece aren’t the only ones who have shown their appreciation for her craftsmanship. Crevoshay’s work continues to receive dozens of awards and has been part of the curriculum at art and design schools throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia for three decades. She has also teamed up with a number of artistic gemstone carvers to create her fine-jewelry collections.

The attraction of Crevoshay jewelry extends to museums around the world as well. Her one-woman shows in Europe and the United States are always packed. Her next, in May 2021 at the Perot Museum in Dallas, Texas, will run for six months.