A Gemologist’s Eye, an Artist’s Heart
A Gemologist’s Eye, an Artist’s Heart
How gemstones and painting became part of the same story
Sometimes the connection reveals itself in a color. A lavender shadow along a mountainside. The soft glow of a pearl. River greens, rose-colored stone, or that last golden light before the sun disappears.
These are the things that make me stop and look. Whether I’m studying a gemstone or standing before a landscape with a paintbrush, I feel that familiar invitation: Come closer. There is something wonderful here.
People sometimes ask how gemology, jewelry design, and painting fit together in my life. To me, they have become a continuing conversation about color, light, and the meaning we find in beautiful things. But the most meaningful part happens when something I create becomes part of someone else’s story.
My training as a GIA Graduate Gemologist taught me to observe with care—to study subtle differences in color, notice how a material responds to light, and appreciate the characteristics that make an individual stone distinctive.
That education gave structure and depth to a fascination I already carried. Painting has been part of my life since I was fifteen. Over the years, my work in gemology and jewelry design continued to develop my attention to color and detail. At the easel, that close observation becomes a starting point for expression: which colors to bring forward, where to soften an edge, and how to guide the eye toward a passage of light.
Painting feeds my jewelry design in return. Working with landscapes encourages me to explore unexpected color relationships and to think about movement, balance, and places for the eye to rest. A necklace has a composition, too. Each stone contributes something to the whole.
I think often about a custom necklace I created with citrine and violet tones. The design had an almost Roman-inspired feeling, with colors that could move beautifully between spring and autumn. It also needed to be light and comfortable enough to enjoy wearing.
Seeing its owner wear it at events has brought me such pleasure. The design now has a life beyond my worktable. It moves with her, accompanies her, and becomes part of the way she expresses herself.
I’ve watched a similar connection happen with paintings. Near Easter, I saw a grandmother place a little girl in a pink dress beneath a blossoming plum tree. That tender moment found its way into my painting. When people saw it, they brought their own memories. They spoke about granddaughters, childhood, and where such a painting might belong in their homes.
I had painted a moment I witnessed. They recognized something of their own lives within it. Those encounters stay with me. They are little golden bricks in the foundation of this work, reminding me why I keep creating.
Another of those moments happened at Redfish Lake. I was painting when members of a wedding party asked whether they could buy the piece. Later, they returned and asked again. They wanted it for the bride and groom.
Their interest helped me understand something I hadn’t fully recognized: the painting could hold the feeling of a place and an occasion for someone else. For me, it was a scene developing on the easel. For them, it could become a wedding gift—a way to remember the beginning of a marriage.
That realization encouraged me to take my painting more seriously. It also helped shape the way I think about collectors. I want to understand what draws someone to a piece, because that connection is often where its deepest value begins.
Bringing the Outdoors Into Our Daily Lives
During the months I spent in a wheelchair after an injury, painting gave me a way to return to places I couldn’t physically reach. Working from photographs, I could spend time with mountain light, water, and wide-open views while indoors. I experienced firsthand how much it meant to have that beauty close.
That season deepened my desire to create paintings people could live with. I love imagining a landscape in a home or office: a place for the eye to wander between tasks, a reminder of a beloved destination, or a welcoming presence in a room where people gather.
I carry that understanding into my own work. Choosing art can be wonderfully personal. You may be responding to a memory, a feeling, or simply a color that makes you happy every time you pass it.
During the months I spent in a wheelchair after an injury, painting gave me a way to return to places I couldn’t physically reach. Working from photographs, I could spend time with mountain light, water, and wide-open views while indoors. I experienced firsthand how much it meant to have that beauty close.
That season deepened my desire to create paintings people could live with. I love imagining a landscape in a home or office: a place for the eye to wander between tasks, a reminder of a beloved destination, or a welcoming presence in a room where people gather.
I carry that understanding into my own work. Choosing art can be wonderfully personal. You may be responding to a memory, a feeling, or simply a color that makes you happy every time you pass it.
My fascination with gemstones also finds its way into the subtle pearlescent and metallic accents I add to selected paintings. These “Shimmers of Light” invite a second look as the illumination or viewing angle changes. I love the possibility that a collector might notice a detail in the evening that seemed quieter earlier in the day.
A gemstone offers its own changing discoveries as it moves. Painting gives me another way to explore that pleasure of looking again. Both keep teaching me to pay attention.
The pieces we choose to wear and bring into our spaces can carry so much: affection, celebration, memory, and a sense of who we are.
My expertise helps me make thoughtful choices about materials, color, and design. My heart keeps returning to the person who will eventually live with the work.
Will a necklace become a favorite companion? Will a painting bring the feeling of a treasured place into an ordinary afternoon? Will someone see a detail and smile because it reminds them of a person they love?
Those are the possibilities that make this work meaningful to me. I would love for you to find something here that feels like a small recognition—that color, that place, that feeling. And when you do, I hope you’ll tell me the story.
Explore my paintings and gemstone jewelry at elizabethvantassel.com, or write to me at [email protected]. I would love to help you discover a piece that feels personal to you.
