WOW

This lovely presentation honors the bead in the most respectful way; in no way could that be considered abuse.

Gorgeous!

Do you do your own gold smithing? What techniques are used to shape the metal? It looks so organic. I love it.

My stock of beads is not huge, but selected: mostly ancient stone beads. I have been seriously purchasing beads from 2000 C.E., not so much as a collector, as to avoid hoarding unvaluable (inherited) cash. Now I am bound to use them on my own designs (a no-nonsense way to enjoy aging) to meet my living expenses.
My metalsmithing skills are virtually nil. It was my good karma to purchase 18 years ago (after I came back home) an apartment less than 100 yards away from the workshop of a traditional silver/goldsmith. This 60 y.o. man (a saint) takes care of the highly esoteric task of smelting, soldering and similar chores demanding professional training and/or machines. My job is musing, sometimes helped by a little drawing... and then of course spending days and weeks filing away unwanted grams of metal, till that expected, suspected, dreamed-of shape is unearthed from the rough metal slab. I am attaching examples of drawings used in the making of a couple of rings -- with the finished piece next to it.
Most of the time fire is required in the first steps only. Welding is minimally used, and never on the really good pieces: these are carved out of solid "bricks" or rods of metal. Stone bezels are often joined to the ring by metal wires passing through the bead's perforation, when it is the case; when no perforation is there, the stones are attached by a metal frame to the ring.
The organinc feeling comes as a side effect of unthinking: going on and on, enjoying it, till the poor thing says "Enough for today!".

I hope it helps

This stone was not a bead: no hole. So a metal frame was used to attach it to the ring. Some welding was necessary.

I was able to retrieve this pic from an old e-mail.
A lady was asking whether I had a black stone to make a ring, and I did use the rough of the ring previously posted, at a very early stage of my work (just the scratch you can see above the hole and the vertical groove along the bottom of the ring) as a makeshift stand to display a mineral specimen.
It may illustrate what comes from the goldsmith, for me to work with.

To further show to which exent I am unskilled, see these pics of both the model and the finished thing: instead of drawing it, I molded the projected ring over the actual stone (a wonderful large ancient Eye Bead amulet) using Blue Tack. THAT I gave to the goldsmith...

hehe!