The Brilliance And Cut Of Sennin Esko's Gems Runs Rings Around Other...Rings

“I feel like I meet a brand-new personality each time I cut a stone,” says Great Barrington-based jewelry artisan Sennin Esko, “It’s truly a joy to cut new stones — there are no words to describe how much enjoyment I get.”

That enthusiasm is palpable even in a telephone conversation. Esko (his company is Sennin Esko Jewelry) is a self-taught artist and jewelry crafter, and to interview him is to get an education in gem cutting and acquisition, and enlightenment on the difference between his one-man, one-of-a-kind business versus the “big box jewelry stores.”

But first, we talk about the gems and the way he cuts them. Esko specializes in fantasy cuts, a departure from the familiar round, oval, square, marquise and other traditional shapes. Fantasy cuts can be symmetrical or asymmetrical, with concave, rounded-cut facets in unusual forms that give the stones a full, internal reflection. These unique cuts add a significant amount of value to the gem and the ring.

10.8 carat fantasy cut umbalite garnet

Take a look at Esko’s Instagram feed — the videos allow you to see the undertones, the shifts in color, the imaginative cuts: hearts and arrows, compass, shield, his own dodecagonal oval design. You’ll see the stones loose and up close, and in his custom settings. Down the rabbit hole you will go, on Instagram and his website, oohing and aahing your way through the sapphires, tourmalines, topazes, and, yes, diamonds, not to mention the hand-engraved bands, bezel settings, and stacking rings.

The most popular gem right now? Sapphires, hands down. But Esko’s aren’t always your typical deep blue stones. The reality, he says, is that sapphires come in every shade of the rainbow, and those dark blue sapphires you see at most jewelry stores are mass cut and heat treated to achieve the deep blue — a treatment that’s seldom disclosed to the customer. Esko buys unheated stones from artisanal miners in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Congo and other countries, and discloses the provenance of each gem as part of the ring’s description. It’s important to him that his business is based on ethical and sustainable choices. That goes for the settings, too, which are made of recycled metals from the USA or Canada.

Esko’s work is unusual, but what’s even more remarkable is that he is entirely self taught. A native of Becket, Massachusetts, he realized halfway through his degree in environmental science that he wasn’t going to pursue a career in that field, and pivoted to jewelry making. Perhaps influenced by his mother, an artist and owner of the former Soul & Spirit store in Lee, Esko took some copper wire and a pair of pliers and began twisting. He spent hours in the beginning, obsessively twisting and encasing crystals into earrings and pendants, then began selling his pieces.

Moissanite rose gold handmade vintage engagement ring

Full-time jewelry making commenced in 2016. He bought a torch, a hand-tool kit, and started cutting sheets of silver, turning them into rings. At first he embellished his creations with cheap cabochons and topazes. But the problem with the mass-cut gems, Esko says, is that they’re not well cut. In 2019 he began faceting his own gemstones — again, self taught. He’s had some training through the Gemological Institute of America, which mostly focuses on gem identification, a course primarily aimed, Sennin says, at gemologists working at the big box stores.

“The Gem Institute doesn’t teach you to cut gems, though,” he says. “I probably have more experience and knowledge than most graduate gemologists do.” He’s also taken a jewelers repair course in New York.

Esko sells online only through his website (which no surprise, he designed and maintains as well; he also takes his own stellar photographs). He recently moved his studio to a new home in Great Barrington but doesn’t have any plans to open a retail shop. He’s plenty busy as it is, booked at least six to eight weeks out. Acknowledging that sizing can be an issue in online ordering, he provides a ring sizing band before starting work on each ring order and will make arrangements with customers to size or resize a ring.

“There are so many great pieces that I will be working on,” Esko forecasts. Right now he’s pretty bowled over by a spectacular 7.4-carat sapphire from Tanzania cut in his own dodecagonal fantasy design with a compass cut crown. It’s currently available as a loose gemstone (GIA report available upon request), $9,000, with $1,000 taken off if ordered with a custom ring commission. One can only imagine the thrill Esko got from applying his lapidary equipment to that sparkler.

“Cutting stones saved my career,” he says. “Doing one-of-a-kind work has changed my attitude and how I feel about my work. I’ll be a student of jewelry making and gem cutting for the rest of my life.”