Rich Pacula the jeweler

Rich Pacula started working in the jewelry business when he was 18, and eventually became the manager of a profitable store in Fort Wayne. Many Fort Wayne natives (and transplants) remember the Pacula and Gough jewelry business located in the Southtown Mall for years. The two men who made that partnership now run separate shops, both good places to go.

But what Rich did is unique. In 2002 he designed a business and worked from the Three Rivers offices in downtown Fort Wayne, near the confluence of the three local rivers. It was a private, "buzz you in" deal for security, and the place was intimate, awesome. The customer experienced a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Pacula. Then around 2005 Pacula moved into the lobby office of the 1st Source Center on Main Street.

Click on his website, www.paculadesigns.com, to see works of gorgeous diamonds, unique settings, and really original material. The shop does custom designs and will work with pictures, drawings, or will do sketches with the customer. I am fond of the modern look to much of his work; the boldness, clean strong lines.

I have seen his works displayed at the Castle Gallery in Fort Wayne as well. One signature thing he turns out is large colored stones mounted at rakish angles, cocktail rings, in big stainless steel settings. They catch the light brilliantly.

He likes geometric shapes, and simple brilliant necklaces suspended from wire. His pieces almost speak, have humor. Yes, I am a fan.

It's fun to meet with the attractive Rich and his assistant, who fetches pieces or other requests from the back. You have an old fashioned conversation, a rare thing in our virtual world.

Take your pick from unusual things he carries. Stainless steel shapes curved like large letters, suspending a diamond or zirconium in space. Shapes of wood inlaid with simple clear and colored stones, again on wire. Rings that float with moons and planets of stones. Earrings that hang and turn boldly.

The bracelet pictured above reminds me of a unique piece of jewelry I had in high school: it was a bicycle chain coated in a polished metal and cut to wrist length, with a toggle fastener. I swear I set it down in a music rehearsal room when practicing there one morning at the high school: when I remembered it later in the day it was gone. Too bad, but I always really missed it.