our diamond cutter
We are so fortunate to have Maarten DeWitte, internationally-known as "The Diamond Wizard," as our diamond cutter. He and Babs met at a jewelry industry trade show in the "speaker's lounge," and out of that mutual love of high-minded jewelry topics, a friendship formed.
Maarten is the former director/owner of the American School of Diamond Cutting, and has over 45 years of experience in the areas of diamond cutting, diamond repair, diamonds of antiquity, and gemology; as well as being the designer of two patented, signature diamond cuts of his own.
We are regularly, and without exception wowed by what Maarten does with chipped diamonds--removing far less material than we would think possible. His abilities to breathe new life into poorly-cut diamonds, or to faithfully retain the proper proportions and facet placement on an antique diamond, are second to none.
Maarten is our diamond cutter. We've broken bread with him, we've laughed with him, we've had him to Alara for a visit. He does amazing work.
our lapidarist | colored stone cutter
Babs and our lapidarist, Denton Anderson, have been working together for nearly 30 years. In fact, an international award-winning piece Babs designed featured a very technically-cut, unusually-shaped pair of interlocking black jade pieces cut by Denton. Without Denton's ability to cut what Babs requested, the piece could not have been made.
Denton's inlay work is excellent--because he knows how to find great rough, and because he knows how to bring out the best in your materials, as well.Â
Does that emerald of yours have beautiful color, but it looks fuzzy? Yeah, that just needs repolishing. And Denton is who does that for us. Most people are blown away by how awesome their repolished gems look after Denton works his magic.Â
