Grandparents often make the best storytellers — and sometimes their stories shape us for life.

Growing up in New Mexico, Elizabeth Potts spent much of her childhood listening to her Grandfather tell fascinating tales about the American Southwest while they sat around the campfire.

“We lived in the summers on a ranch where we’d go on walks and hunt for artifacts, geodes, silver and gold,” she says. “And my grandfather always had a way of really weaving a story around whatever we found.”

Potts remembers collecting pottery shards and pieces of silver quartz she found in the Native American ruins of the ranch, and wearing them on a string as a necklace. Her grandfather’s tales sparked not only her own love of storytelling, but also a passion for history and antiquities — and how those precious handmade objects were created.

“I remember reading about Renaissance jewelry and how detailed the craftsmanship was, and about ancient Egyptians and the art of lost wax casting,” she explains. “So when I went to school, I really dove into all of it.”

While studying history and silversmithing at New Mexico State University, Potts would spend her weekends at the desert flea markets, treasure hunting for vintage rings to add to her collection. When she later moved to New York to study as a goldsmith and bench jeweler, her passion for historical techniques deepened.

In 2016, she launched The Moonstoned, an online store that ethically sources antique and vintage jewelry from around the globe. “Moonstone is a goddess stone,” she explains of the name. “It’s about mystique, femininity, and womanhood. And it’s very powerful, but also very soft and gentle as a stone — that was just something that felt really close to my heart.”

Now based in Catskill, Potts also crafts her own jewelry, using scrap metals and vintage stones, giving new life to old materials. “That always feels the best to me because it’s reusing things that are already out there, and minimizing the harm to the earth,” she says. “And there’s something really beautiful about the art of gold sniping, and watching metals melt and fuse.”

In addition to employing sustainable practices wherever possible, Potts also hopes her work will have a social impact. She recently designed a piece called the Midwife Pendant, the proceeds of which help support the work of midwife Dr. Stephanie Mitchell to build the first-ever Birth Sanctuary in Alabama.

Though inspiration comes from many places, Potts says she always finds herself looking back to history. “I just purchased a small group of 18th- century wax seals and I thought they would make the coolest signet rings,” she says. “So I started the process of trying to figure out how to use those wax pieces to create gold signets. I’m always inspired by whatever history or antiquities that I’m looking at or researching at the time.”

In the spirit of Potts’s upbringing, every piece on The Moonstoned has a story behind it. She revels in the fact that she is often crafting jewelry pieces (such as engagement rings) that mark important milestones in the story of people’s lives and relationships.

“Jewelry is something to celebrate yourself with,” she says. “We’re all these walking beautiful altars that are really deserving of worship and praise and excitement. Jewelry holds onto these feelings and becomes a future heirloom that you can tell a story about.”

Find out more at @themoonstoned

By Mikki Brammer

Photography Courtesy of The Moonstoned/Nicolas Potts

Volume 6