About the Artist

My name is Claudia Romanini Backus and I grew up in Italy, near Venice. As an artist, my mother instilled the love of art and art history in my life. My interest in jewelry started with a small supply of seed beads, a pair of pliers and some copper wire when I was 10 years old. Even back then, I loved the feel of the beads running through my hands. After college, my urge to travel, my love of language and my desire to explore the world pointed me in the radically different direction of the high tech industry. I since have traveled incessantly across continents marketing and selling technology products. I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful people of many cultures, learning their ways—language, art and customs. My world travels have influenced every aspect of my universe. My jewelry translates these experiences into a new language—the language of beads.

“When one looks at a bead, it is hard not to think about…how far through time and distance it has traveled to reach its current destination.”

“The History of Beads by Lois SherrDubin”

About Gyoie Jewelry

Each piece of Gyoie jewelry is uniquely designed and hand-crafted using high-quality materials and components including semi-precious gemstones, pearls and other natural materials from around the world.

Chain – we use either top quality gold-fill chain or 24K gold overlay chain.  For silver chain, we use either sterling silver or rhodium.  Rhodium is in the Platinum family. It is the most expensive and one of the hardest of the precious metals. It is Hypo-Allergenic and does not change color like sterling silver chain.

Leaves – Each piece of jewelry is made from a real leaf so each one is unique. No two are alike. The process is called electroforming and involves hand painting the surface with a copper based paint.Once the natural surface is coated with the copper metal we are able to dip the leaves into a solution of 24kt gold or other specialized metal finishes such as Silver, Pink Copper, etc. Each leaf is a unique handcrafted piece of wearable art.

Because each piece of jewelry is individually hand-crafted using rare and natural components, not one piece is like the other and our collections constantly change and evolve.