Stretch

Liz Kantner, the creator of the Stay Gold Collective; a jewelry maker support organization I belong to, suggested we choose a word of the year for 2025. After considerable thought I chose the word Stretch to drive my mindset for the year to come.

I’ve enjoyed fitness my entire adult life and over the years have shifted from running races to functional fitness and lately a greater focus on stretching. The most overlooked part of my fitness is now the key to keeping me able to work with my hands and stay active.

This past year I turned 65 years old and at the age of a traditional retirement, I find myself running two small businesses: Lori Aks Jewelry and my psychology practice. I don’t feel ready to slow down yet, it feels like there is still so much to learn. With age, I  realize that patience is incredibly helpful to learning new things. Stretching is a freeing way to think about growth at this stage of life. I’m not looking to reinvent the wheel, but I’d like to extend into areas not yet explored and refine what I already know. 

I’ve been stretching into wax carving classes at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey for the past few years to add on to my hand fabrication skills. I am focusing on learning new ways to add gemstones in my wax castings in 2025. Below I’ve shared behind the scenes pictures of making wax rings with rosecut Lavendar Quartz and hexagonal Amethyst. I’ve learned to cut the seat in wax for the stones and then set them after they have been cast into metal. With each new ring I make in wax I feel the stretch into a new world and it feels wonderful. I look forward to adding pieces to my website from the Stretch Collection during 2025. I’ve designed these rings to look as though the gemstones are stretching toward the wearer’s eye in keeping with my 2025 Stretch mindset.