About Nuvell
I'm Nuné. I make every piece of Nuvell by hand, one at a time, in my studio in Los Angeles.
I've always been drawn to gemstones — their depth, their texture, the quiet individuality each one holds. No two are ever the same. That turned out to be the whole idea.
How it started
When I was a child I made puppets — dolls out of broomcorn stalks, which I learned in craft class at school in Armenia. In 2009 I started Nuvell. I was working with felt then: necklaces, hairpins, brooches, bags, earrings. Now I work with semiprecious stones, and one day I would like to work with precious ones.
Nuvell in 2009 — the felt years.
How a piece is made
It starts with the stones, not with a drawing. I lay them out on the table — lapis with its flecks of gold, banded tiger's eye, a baroque pearl that refuses to be round — and I move them around until the line is right. Sometimes that takes an afternoon. Sometimes a strand sits there for a month before I know what it wants to be.
Then I string it. Most pieces are hand-knotted on silk, a knot between each stone, so the strand drapes properly and a broken thread can never cost you more than one bead. I decide the length last, with the piece in my hand.
Nothing is made twice
Every piece has a name and a number — Meridian · No. 039, Half Light · No. 017. When it sells, that number is retired. The stones that went into a piece were the ones on my table that week; I couldn't repeat it exactly if I tried.
That's why the work comes in releases instead of sitting on a shelf — fifteen to twenty-five new pieces at a time, a few times a year.
What I will always tell you
Most of my stones are natural. Some are dyed or color-enhanced — red howlite, some coral, blue magnesite — and where they are, it says so in that piece's description. Magnesite is not turquoise. I'd rather name it correctly than let it pass. You should know exactly what you're wearing.
The studio
It's small: me, a table by the window, and more trays of stones than there's room for. I do have help, of a kind: the cat supervises from the end of the table, and considers a tray of loose beads an open invitation.
Your piece leaves here in a cotton pouch, inside a box, with my card. On the back of the card I write the name and the number of the piece that's in your hands.
— Nuné