mexican carved animals

The perfect gift for your sea-loving friend. Alon Diller crafts this detailed ring from 950 silver using the lost wax technique. He adds oxidized touches to the silver that highlight the hand-carved turtle designs, and signs it AR on the band's interior. Born, in Israel, Alon Diller traveled through Africa and the Americas before making his way to Mexico. He fell in love with silversmithing in Taxco and stayed there to perfect his jewelry-making skills.

An ancient Maya legend tells how the gods gave a specific mission to each being they created. But they realized none had been chosen to carry thoughts and desires from one place to another," says Rosa Padillas of Rosa Roja. "So they carved a small piece of jade into a a slender arrowhead, and it became a beautiful hummingbird with iridescent feathers — the x ts'unu'um. Its mission was to carry good thoughts to all human beings, even those who had died.

"Today, if a hummingbird appears in front of you, it is delivering a message of love from someone who is thinking of you. And if we wear the image of a hummingbird, we carry good thoughts and desires to others.

"The hummingbird legend says that we can fly to the six cardinal points of the universe, therefore the hummingbird is the ideal link to transmit thoughts of love, of respect, tolerance and peace to all creatures on the planet."

The talented Mexican artisan reinterprets the legend as a necklace of dramatic beauty. She creates a hummingbird pendant in the pre-Hispanic style, and adds an agate geode representing the hummingbird's nest. It poses on a strand of gray cultured pearls.