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ARTISTIC GEMS
Gemstone artist John Dyer has won 36 cutting awards since 2002 with his trademarked designs.
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Unusual Artworks for Jewelry Designers and Collectors
Story by John Dyer / Photos by Lydia Dyer / Gems courtesy John Dyer & Co.
The ZigZag cut is faceted with V-shaped grooves alternating on the pavilion to make a culet that zig-zags down the gem.
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My father, David Dyer, and I started Precious Gemstones Co., a gemstone
dealership, in 1996 due to my early love of gemstones. Neither of us
was a gem cutter at the time. I was 16 or 17 and my father had done
many things, but nothing gem or jewelry related. We traveled to Asia,
Africa, South America, and other locations to find good values and a
diversity of rough gemstone materials.
We gave some of the rough gems to a faceter for cutting, but we were
outraged by the price charged and the poor quality of the cutting.
Indeed, two of the three emeralds were so badly faceted that, after we
were unable to sell them for a number of years, we had to have them
re-cut. Finally, I decided to take matters into my own hands and
purchased an UltraTec faceting machine.
I am a "self-taught" faceter in the sense that I never took classes or
had a mentor. I did pick up tips from books and conversations, but much
had to be discovered for myself by experience and experimentation. I
mainly use the UltraTec faceting machine for the flat faceting. There
are also a great variety of other tools that I use, some of which were
made in my father's machine shop and some that we purchased. I use
these machines for various phases of the cutting process. Often,
multiple machines will be used on the same gem.
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I first entered a gem in the AGTA Cutting Edge Awards in 2000. I did
not win that year and then waited another year or two to try again. I
won my first award in 2002 with a Pakistani peridot, which took second
place in the Flat Faceting Category.
In 2005 and 2007, I swept the Flat Faceting Category at the AGTA
Cutting Edge Awards, taking first, second, third, and Honorable
Mention. In 2010, I won my first German award, taking third place in
the Idar-Oberstein cutting competition.
Most recently, I won three second places and one third place awards in
the 2011 AGTA Cutting Edge Awards and the first place in the Specially
Cut Gems division and Best of Show (tied) in the 2011 Lapidary Journal Gemmys competition.
The main focus of our business is selling my artistic gems to jewelry
designers and collectors. Because of the desire to keep them as unique
as possible, I have not published any designs. For more information,
visit www.johndyergems.com.
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From
the Rock & Gem magazine, May 2011 Issue. Reproduced with permission. Click here to download PDF. Click here to read online in the Rock & Gem magazine.
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