James Tovey of Francestown holds up a necklace – a piece of aquamarine on a gold chain. He not only made the entire piece, but he gathered all the materials, including the stone and the gold.
“It’s 100 percent New Hampshire. It’s 100 percent me,” he said during a recent interview at his Milford shop, Toveco.
Tovey means that literally. While not all of the pieces he sells in his shop are made from New Hampshire stones, a good number are, and for some of them, he mined the stone and gold himself, refined it, cut the stones, created the chain, and made the settings.
Tovey bought his first mining operation in Westmoreland in 1994.
Tovey didn’t start out making jewelry. He was a rockhound first, he explained. When he got into the hobby, he was mostly interested in collecting crystals. Lapidary – jewelry making – has a reputation in the collecting community as the “dark side” he said, because it involves cutting the crystals to make gems or beads or even just polished rocks.
Tovey took his first gem cutting class in 1996, but said it didn’t click with him at first. But he was interested enough that when he bought a new beryl mine in 2000, he knew he’d be mining gems for cutting.
He took another cutting class in 2003, this time with a different method, and said he fell in love. Where the previous method he learned followed a set pattern to create different cuts, this system gave him more freedom to create one-of-a-kind cuts.
“They’re unique and that’s the switch,” he said. “You can envision it, and go from there.”
Now, he said, he’s well known in the gem cutting community for his concave stones.
But to get a piece from mine to the store shelf is a long one, he said. Generally, it takes him about two years to make a completed piece.
“Some, you know right away what you’re going to do with it,” he said. “And some sit for a long time. Some take forever.”
Tovey also pans for his own gold in New Hampshire. While New Hampshire has never been known for large quantities of gold, there is a vein running through the state from the Canadian border, and intrepid panners can visit spots like the Ammonoosuc River and its tributaries to collect gold.
Tovey said he learned to pan from a friend, and now incorporates gold he collects himself into his work in chains and settings.
“I always loved gold, but now I’m passionately in love with gold,” he said.
Tovey’s cuts make strategic use of dips in the stone, which can create patterns on the stone when viewed from the front. A few carefully placed concave cuts on the back of a necklace can multiply and create a whole new look from a different angle.
“I’m looking for reflections,” Tovey said. “It’s getting to a certain level of physics.”
To learn more about Tovey’s work, visit www.toveco.com, or visit his shop in Milford. His work is also currenlty on display through March 22 at the headquarters of the of the League of NH Craftsmen, as part of their spotlight on work from those who have become juried members of the League in the last two years. For more information about the League of NH Craftsmen, call 224-3375, or e-mail nhleague@nhcrafts.org or visit www.nhcrafts.org.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.