I first "met" reader Neena Shilvock about a year ago when she emailed me the URL of her then brand new website, Caprilicious Jewelry.   This UK based obstetrician and gynecologist of Indian descent has a true passion for jewelry making. Since her first fledgling steps designing jewelry, she has gone on from strength to strength.


Like many of us, her inspirations come from nature.  One recent and spectacular design is her Glacier Fantasy necklace.  The wire work necklace is a vision in blue aqua quartz, blue agate geode slices surrounded by opalite chips and crystals.



The inspiration for the design came from a wonderful photograph by Manish Lakhani, the author of Kingdoms of Blue Skies and White Mountains.  It was taken while he was on holiday in Ladakh (Tibetan for "land of high passes") in northern India. The blue agate geode slices in Neena's design beautifully represented rounded pieces of ice in the picture of glacial meltwater.

Neena explained how the design came about. "I just posted a picture of the quartz beads, and one of my customers who was browsing my page idly, said they reminded her of this glacier, and sent me some pictures - and then a few weeks later asked for it to be made!"

The design certainly caught some attention. Since making that first Glacial Fantasy, she has made 3 more versions including one for the girlfriend of the photographer.  Neena said, "He was so thrilled to find his picture interpreted in a piece of jewellery, he put in his order the same day!"

Neena also created the beautiful earrings to match.


Another photograph showed icicles set against a mountain view :


And here is Neena's freewheeling interpretation using dagger beads to represent the icicles.


Lakhani's girlfriend preferred a simpler style to match her necklace so Neena whipped up this creation :


The astoundingly beautiful landscapes shown here were taken by Lakhani over different trips to the part of Ladakh which sits on the vast and high altitude Tibetan plateau. Mountains and vast lakes abound in this harsh and cold place. The people here are Changpa nomads who are of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent. Few of them would have seen trees before!  For more pictures, check his Flickr photostream.



The Tibetan glaciers are sometimes known as the Third Pole because they constitute the largest ice mass outside the poles. It acts like a water storage supply system for over a billion people as the headwaters of several major Asian rivers begin here.

Global warming and pollution are both accelerating the melting of 90% of the glaciers at an alarming pace. According to scientists, some of the glaciers might well be gone in the next few decades and that will negatively impact people downstream.

References
NASA : Survival of Tibetan Glaciers
Times of India : Tibet Glaciers melting due to South Asian pollution
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