Rock out with Urban Boulder

Recently a couple of my good friends launched a jewelry line called Urban Boulder. I have to say that I love the ethos and aesthetics behind this label. The name denotes that the inspiration is found in the city streets around us. The sights, shapes, and sounds that we all too often block out and edit from our daily consciousness is what Designer, Lisa Simpson, focused on as a point of beauty. Personally, as a city dweller, I love to stop and admire the grafitti (or just as easily, a rusted twist of metal) as much as a suburbanite enjoys stopping to smell the roses. As a result, this line really talks to me. I especially adore the bracelet with a 'One-Way' sign, which can be seen as a simple street sign, or much more (as a fave band of mine says: "there's only one way of life, and that's your own, your own, your own"). Of course, I am sure I am extrapolating my own meaning from this piece, but that's the beauty. By altering ordinary things into jewelry, one is altering our perception of ordinary things in such a way that we can imbibe meaning from them.
I also really love the Nut and Bolt necklace, but this is mostly because it rocks. It's hard and edgy, but at the same time super luxe. The chunky nature of the silver and the rope chain make Urban Boulder jewelry the sort to last generations. And speaking of rocks, let's talk about the Boulder itself. This is where the ethos comes in.
Opal rocks are hand-mined in co-founder, Remo Carbone's, native Australia.  Urban Boulder buys directly from independant miners and unlike other jewelers they keep it in boulder form rather than just extracting the shiny bits. To me, this keeps the shiny bits contextual to the earth from whence they came. A geologist would wax on about how looking at the striations of the opal in the rock could tell you stories about our earths history that dates back to before man (I am guessing). I love the idea of the history of mother earth at one with my own urban life (which is often very much separate from nature) in one precious piece of jewelry.
In an industry where jewelry is often just about bling and flash, or simply following the iconography of current trends, it is great to see a line that is a work of art married with nature.

Photography by Alison Gootee