You could almost see the gears in Adam Neeley’s head turning. The jeweler from Laguna Beach, Calif., was holding a transparent case containing more than 38 carats of gemstones — bright green peridots and pale pink morganites — cut into large, tapered baguettes.
It was late January, Day 2 of GemFair, a wholesale event at the Tucson Convention Center, organized by the American Gem Trade Association during this Sonoran Desert city’s annual gem shows. Mr. Neeley and his husband and business partner, Zach Rollins, had just purchased the stones from Stephen Avery, a well-known lapidary.
As Mr. Neeley angled the case to catch the light, he gazed admiringly at the loose gems. “I’ve seen that color combo in beautiful floral arrangements before, but I’ve never seen it in a combination of stones,” he said. “I’m tempted to decide whether they go with a green gold or a pink gold. I’m going to get home and kind of envision on it.”
Mr. Neeley, 40, designs much of his work in a kind of dream state. “When I do this successfully, when I wake up from that dream, I have the piece perfectly imagined in my head like it’s already done,” he said.
The semi-mystical approach is in line with Mr. Neeley’s reputation among his gem and pearl suppliers as something of a wizard, adept at transforming metal and stones into radiant jewels sought after by some of the world’s most astute collectors. In the wider jewelry community, however, Mr. Neeley’s work, which he sells at his Laguna Beach gallery, has remained largely under the radar.
