Artist

Laura Serrafero was born and raised in Italy, and grew up with its rich heritage of art and design. Toronto became her new home when Laura’s family moved there when she was in her early teens. She studied painting and sculpture at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and later discovered she could combine her love of three-dimensional design with her love of color by creating jewelry. Laura’s inspiration extends from the symbolism and purity of art by ancient civilizations, to the harmony of forms found in nature.

About

Tourmaline is a semi-precious gemstone with many faces. It is often mistaken for other gemstones: tourmaline can be found in every color imaginable, and an untrained eye might take a green tourmaline to be an emerald, or a red tourmaline as a ruby. However, with its high refractive index and a hardness of 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale, tourmaline is easily as beautiful and durable as the gems it is mistaken for. In fact, tourmaline is said to encourage artistic expression due to its many faces and moods.

Tourmaline’s most ardent admirer was perhaps the last empress of the Ch’ing Dynasty, the Empress Tzu Hsi. A new tourmaline mine was discovered in California in the late 1800’s, and the empress bought up great quantities of the colorful semi-precious stone. Her tourmaline was shipped back to China, where the empress had her treasured tourmaline fashioned into everything from buttons for her clothing to a solid tourmaline pillow.

Details

• handmade with 18k satin-finish white gold
• 4mm band
• 3.5mm wide x 3.5mm tall green tourmaline
• TLC for your satin-finish white gold and precious gemstone jewelry