ABOUT

Each MAHKA design is the result of falling in love with a particular stone’s color, variation, movement, texture and chatoyance. Rachel’s gift as our designer is to surround each stone with silver, gold, and tumbaga. She moves the stone and places opals above or below, she ornaments and encircles the stone. She refines the design until what has been revealed feels like it was always there. This process generates a beautiful sketch that is brought into the world as jewelry through the skilled hands of our partners in silversmithing and lapidary (the art of cutting stones). The stones return more brilliantly than ever, surrounded and resplendent in the actualization of the design once a simple paper sketch.

Rachel left the states after university to travel with her best friends. She learned to surf, taught English and eventually found herself in a small eclectic town in Australia where hand-crafted jewelry was sold in the local markets. Something awoke in her. She learned by trial and error how to find and buy the stones that moved her, how to make simple and eventually more complex jewelry with wire-wrapping and macrame techniques. When she returned to the states, she found a small but eager clientele for her pieces at weekend bazaars and farmers markets. Her designs and metal-smithing styles have changed throughout the years but what has always been constant is the celebration of the stones that continually capture her.