Ann Lambrecht blended her talents and spirit into every piece of jewelry she conceived, rewarding the person wearing it with a one-of-a-kind adornment that came with a story.
Lambrecht, who traveled the globe in search of fascinating stones, coins, ancient glass from the Roman Empire and even fossils from the animal kingdom to ignite her jewelry-designing imagination, died Sept. 16 on what would be her last creative odyssey. The Wayzata artisan died suddenly and unexpectedly from an undetermined cause while traveling in northern India. She was 48.
"Her whole deal with jewelry was it wasn't just about wearing something beautiful or making something beautiful," said Leah McMullen, a onetime assistant who considered Lambrecht her mentor. "It was the story behind it. That's why her customers came to her."
McMullen counts among her most cherished Lambrecht pieces a "huge pendant from Afghanistan that she found somewhere along the way."
Among the more unconventional objects Lambrecht turned into jewelry was a huge fossilized walrus tooth "that she saw something beautiful in," McMullen added.
In her travels, Lambrecht also was inspired by a collection of colorful pieces of broken bottles found along the "Silk Road" in Afghanistan.
The bottles were "used by the Roman army," McMullen said. "They carried their water and wine in these bottles … beautiful blues and greens."
Lambrecht would return from the far reaches of Asia, Africa, Europe and South America with her eye-catching discoveries, then work her magic in the studio built off the home she shared with life partner Michael Morin.
