Lynette Vandeveer

Recently, a friend of mine referred to me as “A real Renaissance woman”. I knew it was meant to be a compliment so I smiled and said, “thank you!” While I always enjoyed dressing up and going to the Renaissance Faire, I must confess: I really had no idea what a “Renaissance woman” was. So I looked it up in our modern day encyclopedia, the internet.

dictionary.com states that a Renaissance woman is “a woman who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field.”

Hmmm… OK, I’ll accept that. While I have profound knowledge in my jewelry making, I also have knowledge of and great appreciation and proficiency in several other fields. To name a few, there’s sailing, music (especially old R&B and Motown, late 50’s and 60’s rock and roll music, and 1970’s rock music, New Wave, and disco – stop the teasing!), dancing to that music, cooking, wine appreciation, family board games like Scrabble and Taboo, card games including poker and Cribbage, baseball, road trips, fishing (freshwater preferred), animals and flowers, cruising – I could go on.

wikihow.com gives several tips on becoming a Renaissance woman/person:
- Be talented athletically
- Be musical
- Understand art
- Be educated
- Be well-read
- Have a good family and economic life
- Be brave
- Be thoughtful and generous
- Be courteous
- Be a leader

While I do or have been all the above, I believe that the most important traits to practice on a daily basis are courtesy, thoughtfulness, generosity, and bravery; and especially one which is not listed: happiness. We owe it to ourselves and all those we love to be happy – happy with who we are and happy with what we have.

Me? A Renaissance woman? I guess the answer would be yes. And thank you, my friend, for giving me one of the best compliments ever.

I love the hat

Chatoyant – adjective: having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light <a chatoyant gem>

Origin: Coined from the French “œil de chat,” meaning “cat’s eye”

Chatoyant. Chatoyance. Chatoyancy. I love the way the word flows off my tongue. It has such a beautiful feel to the mouth when spoken. Yummy. But enough about the sensuality of the word, let’s talk about what it means!

Have you ever looked at a stone and noticed the light dancing inside? Have you ever looked at a polished stone and saw what looked like ‘angel hair’, that white iridescent trim and stringy stuff we used to put on Christmas trees (before it was banned)? Have you ever looked at a polished agate and were teased by what might be a hologram somewhere within the lines of the stone? This is chatoyance – the playful dance of light caused by fibrous inclusions or cavities within a stone. It is what creates the ‘star’ in a star sapphire or star ruby.

When polishing stones, nothing thrills me more than to discover that my piece is waiting for me to bring out its chatoyance, the inner glow, the soul of the stone.