RIP, John Paul Miller, a genius goldsmith and creator of many lovely gold crustaceans

David sez, "A quiet genius, jeweler John Paul Miller, recently passed away and a memorial service was held this past weekend in Cleveland. His jewelery is beautifully detailed and I thought the Boing Boing audience would enjoy his take [Google Image Search] on crustaceans and insects."

Yet the relative paucity of attention given to Miller during his lifetime should not belie the intrinsic importance of his spectacular achievements as a designer and maker of gold jewelry.
Decorative arts curator Stephen Harrison of the Cleveland museum, who organized the smallish but extremely important show in 2010, compared Miller to Rene Lalique and Louis Comfort Tiffany, two giants of late-19th-century decorative art in France and America, respectively.

Goldsmith John Paul Miller, a national treasure, will go down in history as one of Cleveland's greatest artists [Steven Litt/The Plain Dealer]

(Thanks, David!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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jclark666

I spend quite a bit of time seeking out squid (not freaking octopus, Etsy, can’t you tell the difference?) jewlery and I’m glad I’d never seen that piece before, because I was able to spend some time with my family, before abandoning them to my obsessive plot to obtain it.
- timquinn
  
  keyword abuse
  - jclark666
    
    Yes, quite a bit of that, and even a few people who helpfully put “(not squid)” in their description. But a lot more (usually mass-produced) octopus trinkets described as squid. I despair of finding a squid ring that meets my mind’s eye expectations of what a squid ring should look like*, especially since “squid ring” (even with +sterling or +14K) tends to find a lot of calamari-related results.
    
    *as if my finger were a ship being dragged down by the Kraken, not a comfy perch for Pete the Friendliest Octopus.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5LZRT6P3DZDXBE766NAUKUEGPM Stumpy
  
  Along the lines of your Etsy problem, “Hexapoda and Mollusca not freaking Crustacea, Boing Boing, can’t you tell the difference?”
  Really, I’m glad BB finds these cool things to share. Just don’t want people to think that insects and cephalopods are crustaceans, fail their Bio 101 quiz, and dash their dreams of med school. I managed to find two crustaceans that he created (both crabs).
http://www.zanda.fr/ Zanda

Those wings are so beautifully done!
DevinC

I saw a lot of people wearing these fantastic pieces when I visited Innsmouth, Massachusetts.