Lois Gore Works Celestial Metal

There’s good reason the bright, shining sun in the sky reminds us of gold. All the gold on Earth was made when two neutron stars collided. You could also say when binary neutron stars merged, but “a merger” doesn’t begin to express the nuclear power of dying stars.

It is also believed that gold, sought by humans since the dawn of time, was formed in supernovae, when stars 10 times larger than the sun explode.

Either way, the cosmic particles fell to the Earth’s core before the dawn of time. Eventually, gold made it to the Earth’s crust, into riverbeds, volcanoes, hot springs and geysers through cracks and fissures.

Goldsmith Lois Gore took a book off a warped shelf in her East Hampton home and read from a page of “The Life of Benvenuto Cellini.”

“Gold is the most exquisite material on the planet,” she said. “There’s nothing more beautiful. Some might say a flower but I don’t think so.”

Clearly, Gore is as smitten with the heavy metal as the famous Italian goldsmith, who was born in 1500.

She has just finished a stunning ring for the Grammy Award-winning singer, and daughter of Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash.

“You don’t usually see rings this big,” she said. “It’s a stunner, if I do say so myself.”

Cash had four diamonds, family heirlooms from her personal collection, which she wanted to reset in a ring for herself.

Almost a full ounce of the precious metal was used to create the three-quarter inch wide, 22-karat, yellow gold ring with four bezel-set diamonds with half-round wire and granulation in an ancient Byzantine style.

“Traditional jewelry is made with a center stone but Rosanne wanted to stay away from that look,” the jeweler said.

Two old mine-cut, one brilliant cut, and one emerald cut diamonds were divided equally on either side of the center. “It’s irreverent,” she said. “The ring goes all the way up to the knuckle.”

When you put 80 hours into a piece of jewelry like Gore has, the gold holds her energy. “There’s a warmth to it that you don’t get with cast jewelry and CAD (Computer Aided Design software) jewelry,” she said. “Modern jewelry is cold.”

Gore is trying to keep ancient jewelry making techniques alive.

“I do not cast my pieces. Every part is hand fabricated. The gold is alloyed from 24 karat gold to 22 karat gold.”

Tiny amounts of fine silver and pure copper are added to create the 22-karat gold she solely works with. “When gold sprinkled down, it was very close to 22-karat gold,” she said.

The gold is rolled into sheets and pulled into wire by hand. Nothing is electric, except the heating elements.

“It’s a constant process of heating metal and manipulating until its work hardened crystal structure has shifted,” she said. “You want to realign the crystal structure.”

Manipulating gold by hand is strenuous work with a lot of up and down.

“I’m not a bench jeweler,” she said.

Just watching her pound a thin band of gold on a ring mandrel with a wooden dowel makes one break out in a sweat.

Or maybe it’s the flame she used to melt gold nuggets over hot coals.

“Watching gold melt never gets old,” she said.

Only 10 percent of the jewelry industry is handmade and because of the time-consuming nature, there’s not a lot of profit in the small niche.

“You do it because you love it,” Gore said. “It has a certain quality you just don’t see in mass production. You have to be attracted to it.”

Gore was creative her whole life, but she went through several transformations before finding an art she could live with forever.

She grew up in West Hempstead on Long Island.

“My mom was a teacher and my father worked for Pfizer as a die maker. He made machinery parts,” she said. Her late brother, Ron Tunison, was a well-known monument maker and a great inspiration for Gore.

Working with metal runs in her family, but as a child, she started with softer materials on a sewing machine at age five.

“My mother gave me scissors,” she said. Doll clothes morphed into clothing for herself.

As a young adult, Gore took art courses at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Parsons, Rhode Island School of Design and eventually formed her own handbag company, Lois Gore Designs. Each bag was handmade and each clasp was like a piece of jewelry.

“At 47, I went back to FIT to learn jewelry arts,” she said. “I studied with Jeanette Caines who focused on keeping ancient jewelry techniques alive.”

On the first day of class, the student took a seat and looked around. “I thought I reached nirvana,” she said. “And it hasn’t changed at all.”

She later found her mentor in master goldsmith Louise Parrish at the Jewelry Arts Institute in Manhattan. Gore is also a Gemological Institute of America Graduate Gemologist, or GIA GG. “Now I know my gems,” she said.

Nothing will replace Gore’s love of gold. Unlike a diamond, created in the Earth from carbon under tremendous pressure and heat, gold is not borne of this Earth. It cannot be recreated through alchemy or chemistry and is one of the strongest, most malleable metals, able to stretch until it’s paper thin, or thinner, never losing its shine.

“There’s something so special about gold,” she said. “It’s a celestial metal.”

Aside from handcrafting jewelry for one client at a time, Gore also teaches, one student at a time. Students pay $100 for a three-hour class, plus the cost of the gold. They usually start off with a flush set sapphire, ruby or diamond, organically shaped ring, which takes two classes to make.

“Teaching workshops allows me to share skills the student can take on to the next generation,” she said. “Three students have gone on to launch their own careers.”

Keeping a dying art alive is what keeps Gore going, but the teacher never stops learning. “I appreciate that I made a ring this high,” she said of Cash’s ring. I learned a lot, like how to solder granules.”

Hampton Gem pricing starts at $6,500 for custom work and Gore cannot guarantee a time frame. “It’s a blessing and a curse to be creative,” she said.