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Since the hippie era, all sorts of people have been running around wearing Asian pendants made from disk-shaped stones. This ever-present and admittedly rather dull design has never interested me much.

Last year, on a visit to a stone engraver in Hong Kong, I came across several beautiful Burmese jade specimens that had unfortunately already been carved into a heap of those boring disks. I had no other option but to buy them safe in the knowledge that they still could be cut into something more passable.

Meanwhile they have turned into Gothic quatrefoils and are on their way of being incorporated into a pair of earrings.

Almost everything has been done already. There is no need to replicate it, except using a new approach.

Ornaments and symbols that conjure knots in wood, stone and metal have been passed on to us from virtually every bygone culture. I've become more interested in the technique of bakers, who concoct elaborate objects of knots and pretzel-like shapes using threads of dough.

In place of dough I use soft beeswax sticks. With oiled fingers I knot them into dozens of entwined shapes, of which only a few will make it into gold.

For years I have been collecting unusual minerals. 

Amongst the most exceptional specimens are six-pointed rutile stars formed inside smoky quartz crystals. Ordered crystallization of rutile crystal clusters occurs due to hexagonal hematite crystals acting as seed crystals.

Almost always, a rutile star cannot be formed completely. In this case we have a beautiful exception — a perfectly six-pointed star floating inside the crystal.

We are currently applying finishing touches to the gimbal joints of the dragon bracelet prototype presented at TEFAF Mastricht. The refined joints allow its shape to perfectly adjust to the naturally asymmetrical wrist form.