A look at Rebecca Myers’s top five sources of inspiration

When asked to name five of her favorite things that inspire or help her to make great jewelry, Rebecca Myers of Rebecca Myers Collection in Baltimore shared the following:

Museums
I never pass up an opportunity to visit an interesting museum. Contemporary, modern, design, old masters—it recharges me to be surrounded by art. There is always something to learn from other mediums, particularly as it relates to the design process.

Gardening
Each spring my garden comes into bloom, and I immediately open my sketchbook. I can’t think of a more inspiring flower than the peony. The blossoms are fragrant and unfold with soft color. The leaves are smooth and shiny. I admire that they are hardy, easygoing plants. Like these flowers, my jewelry has a feminine quality, but while my designs are in some part delicate, there’s also something rough, a little edgy, and organic about them.

Raw Stones
As a jeweler, I love the hunt for raw materials. Spinels have a clarity and brilliance that make them especially captivating. The natural stones can be found in a variety of colors—they are pure eye candy. I find that their hardness makes them particularly enjoyable to work with. Chrysoberyl is another gem that could eternally fill my stone box. I love designing pieces in 18k and oxidized silver, which highlights the pale, icy yellow-green stones.

Fashion
In my world, fashion and art are bedfellows. Accessorizing with the right piece of jewelry can make your everyday style that much more personal. For me, Betsey Johnson represents how a creative talent can set the trend of a generation. She is unapologetically her own person, and rocked the youthquake movement with her flirty, punk style aesthetic. Her involvement with the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol made quite an impression on me as a teenager.

Tropical Habitats
While visiting Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, I collected seedpods and took images of the indigenous plants and insects—it is an intense, tropical habitat that produces some amazing flora. The details are what engage me—the texture of leaves, the fabric of bark, the freckled pattern on quail eggs. I try to capture that feeling of unexpected wonder and simplicity in my pieces without duplicating the actual thing in nature.