Launa’s Jewelry brings custom jewellery to the George Town Farmers’ Market. You can find finely crafted caymanite necklaces, earrings, bracelets, sculptures, and ornaments.

Cayman Islands Artisan with 20+ years of making unique items from Caymanite, Conch Shell, Black Coral.

Phone: (345) 939-8332

Email: [email protected]

You could order by appointment & delivery (by calling or emailing on 939-8332/ [email protected]) OR
– At Camana Bay – Wednesdays 9am to 3pm OR
– At the Stephen Hamlin Market at the Cricket Grounds – Saturday 8am – 2pm

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/launascaymanitejewelry/

Twenty Questions with Launa Green

Owner – Launa’s Caymanite & Other Jewelry and Sculptures

1. How does your background inspire your craft?

Growing up in the Cayman Islands during a time when many of today’s more modern conveniences were not readily available has given me a hardier sense of the world today. Caymanians from my generation loved to work the land and sea to provide for their families. Farming ground provisions, fishing for seafood and turtles, planting, harvesting and making thatch products are all backbreaking work. But you did what you had to, to ensure that your family never went to bed hungry.

Caymanite was created from a mixture of water, sediment and heavy metals compacted and formed from pressure and time. Even though it was a new skill I had learned some 30 plus years ago, it was a very natural progression for me. The parallel between crafting Caymanite and farming off the land is uncanny: planting yam, cassava, potatoes means preparing the ground, planting, harvesting, and cooking it for dinner. Creating Caymanite jewelry, using a dolomite stone from ‘the ground” has the same rhythm. Harvesting, cutting, shaping and polishing Caymanite is hard work: it can splinter into a million unusable pieces if you rush the process. So you prepare each raw rock carefully, and let each piece ripen and harvest the final finished product much to the delight of every one of my customers.

2. How did you get started creating jewellery with Caymanite and why do you continue with it?

I started learning how to sculpt Caymanite; jewelry from Dr. Joseph Jackman, a master craftsman, in the 1990’s and continued to learn from him and other master craftsman including Jose Inga, my current sculptor of almost 20 years & other sculptors that I work with for commissioned pieces.

When you look at a raw piece of Caymanite and see the unique layers, colours and the patterns created from water, sediment and natural metals, you can’t help but be in awe of what will emerge as you design, cut and shape each piece. With each piece created you bring it to life with time, patience and artistic flair. Each piece of Caymanite needs to be treated as an expectant mother waiting for her babies to be born.

3. Which aspects of the jewellery is your staff responsible for?

My staff sculpts all the intricate pieces including jewelry, sculptures and all the large pieces. We both design, and create the concept pieces, commissioned works, and the stock items we sell on a regular basis.

4. Does the rock hold any special meaning or symbolism for you, and what do you hope your jewellery means to those who purchase it?

Caymanite is such a beautiful stone and because no two pieces are exactly alike, I fall in love with it over and over again. Because it comes from ‘the ground’, it is of Cayman, and I love these islands, Caymanite love is deep in my heart. With each piece I create, I am shaping a piece of the Cayman Islands and sharing it with my clients, and the world.

My customers love coming to the islands, so taking a piece of that love home with them is such a delight for them. Then they buy pieces for family and friends so pieces of Cayman that I have shaped with love are traveling around the world and finding new homes. I just love the significance of that.

5. What special visual qualities does Caymanite contribute to jewellery? How can its different layers be worked into a design?

Caymanite, a hard dolomite, formed during the Oligocene-Miocene epoch, between 16 and 25 million years ago. Caymanite has layers of colours in beautiful earth tones, created by the different metallic content of the strata. Magnesium dominates in the black layers and iron produce shades of red. Among other ingredients are nickel, titanium and copper.

The layers can create such interesting patterns based on how we cut and shape the raw rock. What we design is based on what we can visualise with each raw piece which makes the process unique and different every time.

6. What challenges are posed by working with Caymanite? Is it any easier or more difficult than other rocks? Is it a good place to start for beginners in jewellery making?

Because it is so hard, we cannot rush the cutting, shaping or polishing or it will fracture and be less usable. Once it splinters, we can only use the pieces to create something new depending on the size. Shaping earrings is the hardest item to create because the strata layers are not always balanced enough to create identical pieces.

Creating pendants is the easiest item to make. Making holes for findings is the absolute hardest part of working with Caymanite. Boring holes can create small fractures that are not easily or immediately seen which will create problems later on in the finishing process.

7. How much time does it take you to create a piece?

The time each piece takes depends really on the type of piece and the level of intricacy required:
a. Pendants and earrings can take between 3-5 hours
b. Sculptures and inlaid pieces can take 12 hours or several weeks.

8. Where do you get your Caymanite?

We purchase Caymanite from private homeowners that mine/ excavate it while preparing the land for building construction. We purchase mostly from the eastern districts.

9. Why should people purchase Caymanite jewellery?

Caymanite is a unique, semi-precious stone from the Cayman Islands. It exists nowhere else but here. Instead of our visitors taking prohibited items from the land and sea, we should encourage them to take a ‘piece of the island’ made in the Cayman Islands, created by history, culture and a rich heritage.

10. What year were you born and where on the island did you grow up?

Born in 1962, from the district of West Bay, spent from late 1969 to 1974 in New York, first school.

11. What are some examples of the modern conveniences not readily available on the island when you were young?

There was no city water, most homes had cisterns and there weren’t many street lights or paved roads.

12. How did your family earn a living, and what type of work did you do before starting with Caymanite?

Most men went to sea and the ladies were helpers to the most well-to-do families, worked in the hotel industry or cleaned offices and banks. My first jobs while attending High School were babysitting and then at the Beach Club Hotel as a kitchen helper, when I saw the pots were taller than I was. After High School and College I worked at the Airport for Caymania Duty Free and a little time with American Airlines then the National Museum before opening my own business.

13. Since you compare farming to crafting Caymanite, is farming something you have a lot of experience with?

Love to do a little gardening.

14. How did you meet Dr. Jackman, and how old were you?

My cousin used to work for Dr. Jackman, she was his primary jewelry maker, and I would take my work breaks to visit the workshop. Dr. Jackman also had a store at the airport; I think the name was Snob Appeal. I was 26 years young.

15. What were your thoughts and how did you react when you first saw the work Dr. Jackman was doing? Were you eager to learn the craft?

I always had an eye for beautiful things. I was very eager so I could make my own special pieces for family members and friends.

16. Which place did you work at during the time you started visiting your cousin at Dr. Jackman’s studio?

I was working at the airport with several retail outlets, or with one of the airlines. I would visit the studio on my breaks

17. How did you become familiar with farming? Was it something you did as a child?

I am not a big time farmer, I just plant a few plants for personal use.

18. What would you personally say are the types of jewellery you offer and the subjects usually depicted in the sculptural items?

For both types of items I focus on things of the islands, sea life, plant life, animals, and life in the Cayman Islands – Stingrays, turtles, birds, starfish, rain drops, sea shells, conch etc.

19. Do you have any advice for people getting started in this line of work?

Caymanite is becoming much more popular than when I first started and there are so many skilled artisans in the marketplace now using it in their craft. For new people wishing to enter this industry, I would tell them to be diligent in learning the craft, persistent in showcasing their skills with the public, and find a way to differentiate themselves to make their business successful. For me, I ensure that my work is of the highest quality and my customers come back because I am responsive to their needs, fair and generous.

I will add that I am disappointed that working with Caymanite is not being taught in the schools island-wide as a structured curriculum subject. It used to be taught many years ago, but it fell by the wayside. It is time this is revitalized again.

20. Where can people currently buy your work?

I sell my pieces by special appointment & delivery (by calling or emailing me on 939-8332/ [email protected]) OR
– At Camana Bay – Wednesdays 9am to 3pm OR
– At the Stephen Hamlin Market at the Cricket Grounds – Saturday 8am – 2pm

Your guide to the Cayman Islands

Launa’s Caymanite Jewelry

Launa’s Caymanite Jewelry

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