Celestial Twilight Collection Inspo!

At the end of this past summer, I took two weeks off and camped around the Northeastern US - from Philly to New York’s Finger Lakes region, Niagara Falls and the Adirondacks, then up through Vermont and the White Mountains in New Hampshire, before spending a few nights on a picturesque lake in Maine. The trek back home saw me come down along the coast through Massachusetts and Connecticut. This trip was such a bright and positive reinvigoration, after feeling the weight of living in a city apartment with no outdoor space during a lockdown, going on almost six months at that time. I felt so re-inspired, and two new collection ideas emerged.

The first (and subject of this blog post) is the recently launched Celestial Twilight! I had already been feeling very drawn to celestial imagery lately - different styles of moons, stars, constellations, etc (I really love those 90's moons, do you know what I'm talking about!?). Add to that the night skies I was seeing on this trip - it was overwhelming in the best possible way. You just cannot experience skies like this if you live anywhere close to even a small city, much less the greater metropolitan Philadelphia area.  Even my hometown of Williamsport, a small mountain community in north central Pennsylvania, does not have skies like this.  

(Lincolnville, ME)

It would start off with a sunset that gave me the color palette inspiration. The sky would darken into shades of purple (spinel and amethyst), and when the sun was setting, reds and oranges brilliantly slid across the horizon (garnet and rhodolite garnet), creating an ombré with the dark, dark blue sky, and freckled with the first stars of the evening. Twilight would slowly reveal more stars, little by little, until the sky was so full you could see the haze of the Milky Way. I chose iolite, labradorite, pyrite, and lapis lazuli to translate this crepuscular colorway. Lapis was particularly perfect, as it included the deepness of that blue, and the gold flecks for the dancing, twinkling fires trillions of miles above me.

I really enjoyed distilling this imagery into Vannucci jewelry. For these earrings, I drew on my amazement of star clusters on the horizon, but I rendered the "stars" in gemstones the color of the skies. I love design that informs, but isn't necessarily a literal translation.

For a few other pieces, I also attempted to imbue a sort of "witchy" vibe that I felt throughout my trip. Celestial scenery already appears magical to me, so a stop in Salem, Massachusetts, along with that feeling that autumn is close behind, also inspired me to use deep colors which convey that mystical, season changing ambiance.

I hope y'all are into it as well!  The second collection will come along in the near future, but for now, this is just my Total Mood and I wanted to share it with everyone!!  Let me know what you think :)