My name is Cynthia Robins. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I make jewelry. My journey here has been a long and varied, somewhat bumpy ride, beginning in Ohio where I was born and educated. I am an only child, invested with a tremendous thirst for knowledge and a healthy curiousity. I am a musician and a writer and now, I am actually making something that comes out of my brain, through my fingers and into reality.
I grew up in Columbus, Ohio in the 1950s, a time when women were supposed t0 marry, have children and be their husband's right hand, a template that somehow didn't work for me. My first marriage was over before our tenth anniversary. My children, two boys, were still in elementary school. I took my MA in Theater from Ohio State and got a job writing PR copy for the grand sum of $2.25 an hour. That parlayed into a freelance job writing arts reviews for an editor named Edward Fisher, a cigar-chomping autodidact who loved crossword puzzles, pretty woman and good writers.
When I brought my PR copy to Eddie, he kept asking me out. I kept refusing. My divorce attorney who knew him told me he was harmless, to go. . . and to drive my own car. Our first outing together was to a dinner club where Phyllis Diller was performing. After a moderately good steak and some very good Scotch, we settled into to watch Diller.
Eddie pushed a notepad and a pen at me and told me to write what I saw. So, like the good student I always was, I took notes. At the end of the evening (I had driven my own car) I handed him back his property and left. The next morning, I picked up the morning paper and read Eddie's review and saw my notes. I called him and bawled him out for ripping me off. "OK, big mouth," he said, "How'd you like to try it on your own next week?" And that's how I started freelancing for the Columbus Dispatch . It was a job that honed my skills as both a critic and a deadline writer.
Eventually, I was hired to compile the television logs and to write reviews, when I had the time. the logs took maye a day to do, so the other four days and nights were spent going to the opening of an envelope, just about, to get a byline. Six months into my tenure at the Dispatch, I was the full-time, six-day a week TV columnist. I stayed in that job for nearly four years before I was hired at the San Francisco Examiner as a general assignment feature writer.
I can remember riding in from the airport in the middle of a rainy, foggy February night. Looking at the Transamerica Pyramid and the San Francisco skyline, I said to myself: "You're good for 25 years," which I was. When the Hearsts sold the Examiner and bought the morning Chronicle in November, 2000, both of our staffs were combined. After a year, buyouts were offered and I took one. I left the Hearst organization after 24 years, 11 months and one week. Shortly after, I took my little nest egg and bought a house in Las Vegas. When I told my colleagues that I was quitting and moving to the desert, they were shocked. How can you leave San Francisco was the universal question. My answer: "Just watch me."
On March 26, 2002, I moved from the eternal Gray Lady, she of fog, mist and good-old San Fransisco attitude, to the Wild, Wild West. Vegas! She of the glittering Strip, superstar hotels, 24-hour buffets and slots and, a dose of Southwestern reality.
The Strip is only 5 miles long and Clark County is enormous, with nearly 2-million people, living in gated communiti, enjoying no state income tax, wide streets with 45 mph speed limits, endless sunshine and free parking. Add to that owning my dream house (three bedrooms, three baths and a nicely little 40' swimming pool), I enjoyed what 30 years labor had affoded me. The house, the pool, and. . . a clean slate. I was and still am in a heaven of endless desert and eternal sunshine. No, Vegas is not San Francisco (any time I want an infusion of culture, San Francisco is just an hour and a half away by plane), but it has its own charms, the least of which: I can have the life I always wanted.
And part of that life is discovering a new creative path. My father and mother owned a small jewelry story. And when I grew up, diamonds, rubies and other shiny things were part of my life. On Friday nights, Daddy would bring home his latest packet of loose diamonds to show us. He'd unwrap the little "brifkes,' the oragami-like folds of white paper lined in shiny powder blue, the better to show off the dancing stones. The diamonds sparkled in the light of the Sabbath candles, throwing rainbows on the walls. It was entrancing for a a six-year-old. . . and fostered in me a life-long adoration of things sparkly and precious. And, now, colorful.
When I walk into a bead show or store, I get the land-lubber's equivalent of raptures of the deep. I am so captivated by the color and texture and the possibilities that those stones present, things that I am creating in my head long before actually making something at the jeweler's bench. I can hardly wait to get into my studio and realize the products of my imagination.
Consider this blog my catalogue, a record of my favorite things and their journey from my head to the ears, wrists and necks of my clients. And, hopefully, you.
This piece is a fabulous neutral with subtle sheen and just enough sparkle to make it interesting.
In the other new wall, my carpenter cut a window that looks out onto the pool area (we Feng Shui'd the heck out of the space). We retained the beautiful brick columns that held up the original lanai but enlarged the space upwards to give it an airy feeling.
Once the new walls were up, it was time to removed the former dropped ceiling which revealed a gentle cathedral which added height and light to the space. The hole in the wall is for the AC/Heat unit, a necessity for Las Vegas's oven-like summers and chilly winters.
Once in a while, a single element will dictate what the remainder of the piece will be. In this case, it was the spectacular chunk of turuqoise in this free-form clasp.
Rubies vary so much in color -- from a light red peony to these deep, beet-maroon roundels. This is a classic necklace form, a real turtleneck sweater necklace (or something simple and stunning over a Christmas black velvet cocktail dress with a lovely decolletage.
When I am in San Francisco, I make a bee-line for Chinatown and my pearl lady. I can always count on her to have gorgeous freshwater pearls in all shapes and sizes, my favorite of which is the paddle pearl, or the Biwa. It's like a coin pearl with its tail left on and when I string it and combine it with other strands, the resulting necklace is like a fluffy lace ruff, a real statement.
Labradorite has always fascinated me, mostly because there is a lot more going on in this mineral than immediately meets the eye. To the casual observer, this stone is just a mass of uninteresting gray-green, but a close-up viewing will reveal its inner fire -- as if the interior of the stone were lit by a mysterious blue flame. Turn the stone in your hands and this "schiller," or Labradorescence bounces around, producing highlights of blue and violet and in gemstone quality Labradorite, an entire rainbow of colors.
