Onetribe + Diablo Organics Collaboration :: Pu Ju

I really like collaborations, but for one reason or another I never feel like I have enough time to coordinate them. When I decided to start carrying some Diablo Organics/Jimmy Buddha Designs brass weights here on the Onetribe website to compliment our own work in natural materials, I got excited about the idea of cutting our own stones to inlay. I like Jimmy's work because it tends to be ornate and decorative, which is something that generally doesn't come out of my own head. I'm a "minimalist materials engineer," and their beautiful weight and hanging styles are very different from the things I would make myself. What I can do, however, is cut some marvelous stone specimens to give those styles some extra pop.

I've had some good times with Jimmy from Diablo here in Richmond and also in Mexico, and I thought it would be fun to finally have both our names on a project, so here we are. Jimmy supplied me with cleaned up castings of the "Pu Ju" style and I have created custom settings and 25mm cabochons to make each pair unique. There are only four pairs up for grabs, with three of them being one of a kind and one being repeatable (the Lapis Lazuli pair).

I hope you guys enjoy these pieces as much as I've enjoyed working on them! Jimmy hasn't seen all of them either, so hopefully he feels that I've done justice to the original work.

Click the titles or photos below to hit each product page.

Lapis Lazuli SOLD

I've been wanting to pair our gorgeous AA Lapis Lazuli with a gold toned metal since before I even had the Lapis in my hands. The colors just work so well together. I've cut custom flat cabochons for this pair and done a four sided double-tab setting and shortened the remaining bezel walls to frame the stone. The Lapis makes an appearance on the back of the pieces also, and is visible through the flower. Only one pair available but we do have more Lapis, so these can be remade, although I can't guarantee such flawless color with no inclusions.

Pink Andean Opal + 24k Gold SOLD

I've worked Pink Andean Opal previously but this was the boldest pink I have run across. Pink and gold tones always look amazing together so I got excited about these pieces once I verified the one small chunk of material I had was large enough. They were cut from the same small stone, so the material faded from one end to the opposite, which is why one of the pieces has a more mottled appearance than the other. I thought they worked well despite this, and feel it helped to illustrate one of my favorite things about natural materials: they are all unique and vary even within the same piece. The backs did not match up well enough for my liking though, due to the matrix from the outside of the stone remaining on the mottled cab, so I decided to apply pure 24k gold leaf to the backs of the stones. The leaf has a nice matte appearance and slight color difference that sets it off nicely from the brass. The setting for these pieces is a crown type with four prongs and swooping negative space, which I thought felt more traditionally feminine. This pair is one of a kind.

Sapphire Guatemalan Jadeite SOLD

This is a special material from my personal collection that has only made it into body jewelry a few times. It is a Guatemalan jadeite with an extremely saturated blue-green tone and nice translucency that reveals veining and "sapphire blue" color, which is the result of high concentrations of titanium and other secondary metals. The setting is a six prong with open sides - the arrangement of the prongs was inspired by angles seen in Mesoamerican art. This pair is one of a kind.

Chuconhueso Guatemalan Jadeite SOLD

This is a Guatemalan jadeite that I have used in the past to make some pretty incredible Mesoamerican style ear flares. I only had a small piece left and it was perfect for this project. This material is unique because it seems opaque, but the darkness is the result of a very, very heavily saturated deep green color (see product page). I've always loved the erratic white veining sometimes present in this stone, and I cut what I had left of it to maximize that on the faces of these cabs. This is the most elaborate setting of the bunch and is a four sided double-tab setting with lowered bezel walls between and tabs that extend outward into the overall design. This setting also reflects Mesoamerican inspiration and reminds of, among other art, the Aztec calendar with points radiating out from the center. This pair is one of a kind.