What is a "musea", and how do you say it out loud?
"Musea" (myoōz āə) is the plural for museum, which we all know is a place where interesting things are displayed, the word stemming from Greek via Latin: "seat of the muses." No one ever says musea, though. For example: "There are a plethora of musea on 5th Avenue." Which is a shame, because it's a beautiful word. Just five letters, but there's a large body of water inside it. 'Muse' refers to thinking deeply about something; or to a source of inspiration. And if you move the 'a' to the front, you get the lovely verb 'amuse.'
OK, but what is this musea pendant?
Musea is our every-pendant. We had to call it something. It is a sterling silver frame which houses our interchangeable musea paintings. The glass is held inside the frame with an extremely strong neodymium magnet. The frame is equipped with a magnetic stainless steel backing, whereas the magnet is fitted into the glass.
But why this interchangeable gimmick? I liked your old pendants just fine.
Not to worry -- we'll continue to make our old pendants with the adhered bail. But we'll be the first to tell you, the glass looks really slick inside these babies. The silver frames the design like a jeweler's bezel and makes it very hard to take your eyes off it; it's dressier; it's fun to pop the glass in and out and hear the magnetic click; and yes, it's 100% sterling silver. So if you wanted our pendants in silver, here they are. And the best part about it: you only pay for the silver once. All of our musea paintings will fit the universal frame.
But won't it just fall out?
The painting is held in place with a magnet. And this is not your ordinary kitchen magnet. Neodymium is the strongest of the rare earth magnets -- it is the strongest kind of magnet in the world. It will lose less than 1% of its strength after ten years of use. The bond is so strong that we left part of the pendant open in the back so that the glass can be pushed out from behind.
Can anyone wear these?
Anyone except those with an internal electronic device, such as a pacemaker or an insulin monitor. If this is the case, please consult your physician first.
Ok, I want one. But I don't like any of the choices. When will you have more?
We will be continuously adding new paintings to the site. If you have any special requests, let us know.
What is the difference between some-of-a-kind and one-of-a-kind?
Because every single piece is individually painted and collaged, all of the paintings are "originals". Our some-of-a-kind designs are not "prints", in other words. They are tried and tested designs that we make in batches of twenty or thirty. The one-of-a-kind (OOAK) paintings are really, truly OOAK (which is a really cool acronym, on a sidenote) -- often for reasons of complexity, we don't try to repeat them. We often charge a bit more for these because in each batch, a few (or sometimes a lot) will wind up in the trash.