Miscellaneous

Forty years ago in 1965 Donald Cook and his father purchased a lapidary shop in downtown Boston from a skilled German stone cutter, Eugene Leyendecker. Eugene stayed with Donald for a year and taught him to cut gems. Donald needed to learn to remove and reset stones for repair; so he apprenticed to a Florentine master jeweler, Carmen Fushetti, for 2 years. Custom jewelry work began to come his way and soon he was cutting stones, designing and selling his own jewelry. Area museums and schools began to request that Donald teach courses, which he did. He then decided to open his own school. In 1971 Judith, his wife, became a student in their school. They began to collaborate, as well as work separately on designs. Their philosophy towards work is: "to handcraft each piece with only the finest materials, innovatively, but with strong ties to the traditional, while striving for beauty, durability and wearability."