Matt Bezak is one of three jewelry designers named on our About page, alongside Mikel and Teufel — that's not incidental, his hand-cast glass work has been part of how this gallery describes itself for a long time. Twenty-five pieces are live right now, $795 to $2,989, median $1,280, and all but one of them are pendants.

Hand-cast glass set into gold

Every listing in this collection describes the same process for a reason: each piece is made by hand, upon order, in 14k gold with a glass element cast in place rather than added afterward. A wave's curl, a dolphin's body, a puffer fish's spines, a firefly's wings — the glass takes the shape of the motif itself and sits inside a gold undercarriage built to hold it, a different construction than a stone glued flat onto a setting. Most designs come in both yellow and white 14k gold. Several take a single small diamond, usually .02 to .04 carat, set at the base of the curl, and a handful of the wave pendants use a pearl instead. Past the wave designs, the same casting technique turns up as sea creatures — two fish, a puffer fish, three seahorses, an octopus, a sand dollar — plus a butterfly design and a spirit-wings pendant that step outside sea life entirely. Nineteen of the twenty-five pieces are offered in yellow gold, so if white gold matters to you, check the listing before you assume it's an option.

What "made upon order" means for you

Because the glass is cast fresh rather than pulled from stock, color and clarity will vary slightly piece to piece — that's the nature of hand-cast glass, not a flaw, but it's worth knowing before you order. Sizes run small and are stated in fractional inches on every listing, typically 5/8" up to 1 1/4" across, and most pendants don't come with a chain, so plan for that separately. Because every piece here is made upon order rather than pulled from finished stock, availability isn't limited by an on-hand count the way a finished-goods collection would be — what's listed is what you can order, in whichever gold color that design offers. Glass takes different care than a faceted stone — clean it the way you'd clean a fine glass object, not in an ultrasonic cleaner built for diamonds, since the vibration and heat a diamond shrugs off can stress a cast-glass setting. Call us with questions on gold color, stone choice, or chain before you order — at twenty-five pieces total, I can usually tell you on the phone whether a design you're picturing exists in the collection or not.

— Steve Schlag, founder, Dolphin Galleries