About the Lake House Collection
The Lake House Collection is a two-part collection made up of two mini-collections inspired by my calm and joyous memories at my parent’s lake house in Citrus County, Florida. This simple but special place was always a safe haven for emotional healing while growing up.
Here is an especially incredible sunset on the lake, picture courtesy of my Dad, Scott Pautler (landscape photographer extraordinaire).
When I was younger, I would sit out on the screened back veranda at my parent’s lake house to enjoy the whiteout of rain from the summer thunderstorms where the rain was so thick, you couldn’t even see the houses on the other side of the lake.
During this time, my parents and I would just sit out there and enjoy the cool mist and listen to nature’s wet music. Sometimes we would lightly chat, but it was a really enriching feeling to be surrounded by love even in silence.
When the rain ended, there would be this kind of light purple haze from the heavy rain that just fell that would hover above the lake.
(Pictured is the artist as a teen in 2005, laying on the dock and deep in introspection.)
I wanted to capture that moment of meditative calm and joy under the veranda, where the weight of the week—working through depression and an eating disorder—could be washed away during the weekend.
Lilac Veranda (Contemplate 3) is a figurative cobblestone inlay pendant made to capture those vivid memories. She is made with sterling and Argentium silver inlaid with 19 pieces of sugilite (the figure’s skin), phosphosiderite (her pants), Indonesian agatized coral (her shirt), and Lucin variscite (her anklet).
As with any cobblestone inlay, each stone is precisely cut to fit into each recess of my inlay pendant design before they are individually polished. This makes for a really lovely surface texture that feels wonderful to trail your fingers over.
The two sets of agatized coral earrings are symbolic of the fact that the sun is always there behind the clouds and that contentment is always waiting for you, even when times are tough—both through the almost sun-like feel of the agatized coral patterning, to the hand-sawn sterling silver sun rays in the earring design.
After a long weekend day either cleaning up the yard of fallen branches or wakeboarding, it was always a great way to end the day by sitting on the dock--which had a perfect view to watch the sunset.
From the dock, capturing silhouettes of my husband Ryan kayak fishing during a particularly lovely yellow sunset on the lake.
And sunsets in Florida really are spectacular, especially when there are enough fluffy clouds to make for a colorful show that is hard to capture in a photo. (I often don’t capture many pictures because I get too caught up in the moment that I forget to! Pictures don’t do them much justice anyways.)
Sunset Dock (Contemplate 4) was inspired by this scenic memory at the lake house dock, soaking up the last few rays of the day lost in deep thought. This figurative cobblestone inlay pendant is made with 21 pieces of stabilized Hubei turquoise (her skin and shirt), obsidian (her hair), Florida agatized coral (her pants), and rhodonite (her bracelet). A small portion of her left leg has some copper added to it for accent.
This figure is also complimented with two different sets of drop earrings.
The first pair have two juicy pieces of Hubei turquoise (backed with denim lapis for strength) and set in a half-prong half-bezel setting similarly to the agatized coral earrings in the other mini-collection to make them feel more magnificent when worn.
The second pair are post earrings with both Hubei turquoise and Florida agatized coral that are from the same mother stone used in the inlay pendant.
The sun rays in these turquoise drop earrings are reminiscent of the “God rays” you see when the sun peeks out over the clouds on the horizon during our sunsets, making for an extraordinary light show in the sky.
When wearing these pieces, I hope they light you up from within and make you feel recharged with the energy I’ve put into them as I carefully brought them to life.
These pieces will be available soon, with my VIP email list always getting first access to new collection releases.