On the Gulf Coast of Florida, there is a rare phenomenon known to lucky onlookers as the green flash—a magical moment when the sun sets and its rays refract through the atmosphere as it disappears below the horizon. If you’re in the right spot at the right time, you can witness the light in all its fleeting splendor. This colorful display of nature inspired William Boyajian of Port Royal Jewelers to design a pendant and earrings that evoke the vivid hue of the green flash, a design decision indicative of his entire creative process: designing and crafting a piece of jewelry so singular that you will probably never see another like it again.
Courtesy Port Royal Jewelers
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It might be the iridescence emanating from an Australian opal, alive with light and tempered by the saturation of pink tourmaline and coral-colored sapphires. Or the play of pink and lilac kunzite against natural diamonds, pink topaz and multi-colored sapphires to form a pair of rose gold earrings. Or the way clusters of fancy-colored diamonds and orange sapphires can animate a custom-designed coral snake ring, their scaled arrangement lending movement along a yellow gold serpentine body. In every case, Boyajian approaches design with the eye of an artist, the knowledge of a scholar and a deep reverence for the natural world.
Working from his studio and shop on Naples’ idyllic Fifth Avenue, Boyajian, a third-generation jeweler, carries his family’s legacy into new creative dimensions with bold statement makers, delicately detailed adornments, and multipurpose pieces that can come apart and add back on to create different shapes and lengths of jewelry on a whim. “My father was a gem merchant and traveled all over the world and would bring back things like rough gemstones,” Boyajian says, recalling his father’s Fifth Avenue store, Landmark Gems, established in 1968. “He would have a lapidary in his office who showed me how to cut the stones when I was little, and I remember cutting a few cabochons.”
Courtesy Port Royal Jewelers
william Boyajian port royal jewelers world of jewelry snake ring
Although Boyajian grew up in the family business, his fascination always centered on the artistry and the design, rather than the business itself. He attended the Gemological Institute of America to receive a formal education on gemstones in order to talk shop with his father, but he imagined a life designing large-scale sculptures, as he calls them—think airplanes, boats and automobiles. Fate, it turns out, would bring him right back to his love of gems and devotion to family. After graduating from the ArtCenter College of Design in California, he returned to Florida to help his father and, before he knew it, he was entrenched. Boyajian went on to earn a degree in goldsmithing and, later, a degree in CAD in the early 2000s.
Through opening Port Royal Jewelers, Boyajian has been able to merge the time-honored traditions passed down from his father with the forward-thinking design work and hand-sketching skills he honed at ArtCenter, as well as the technological advances afforded by CAD, 3D printing and, today, even AI. Immersing himself in the community, he has partnered with local philanthropic endeavors to create special pieces for auction and often creates custom commissions for serious collectors who share his passion for jewelry. “I’m doing it for art’s sake,” he says, as he continues to move his father’s professional ethos and legacy forward. “ArtCenter College of Design pushes the envelope; they create the concepts that people are afraid to do. So I’ve always been looking for patrons who want something unique.”
Courtesy Port Royal Jewelers
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Much like the great master painters who drew inspiration from sacred symbolism, Boyajian’s work is guided by a sense of the transcendent: gemstones that carry mini-universes within them, possessing an otherworldly quality that has come from the earth almost inexplicably and for no other reason than to bring us divine beauty. When asked whether there are any stones he enjoys working with the most, Boyajian’s answer is simple: “Just something unusual.” But one wouldn’t even need to pose the question; the earrings he designed using dinosaur bone and detachable black and white diamonds are proof enough.