| Ricardo Basta | |
| Birth Name: | Ricardo Basta |
| Birth Place: | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Nationality: | Argentine American |
| Known For: | Jewelry Designer |
| Website: | ricardobasta.com |
Ricardo Basta (born in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Argentine American jewelry designer based in Southern California and is known for sourcing only ethically mined gems and diamonds.[1]
Ricardo Basta was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the age of 19, Basta moved to the United States.[2] He arrived in Los Angeles, California and is a third generation jeweler. He began working for his uncle who owned and was a European trained master jeweler and expert in restoration who operated a jewelry store.[3] Basta began by sweeping floors and eventually apprenticed with European-trained jewelers.[4]
Early in his career, Basta began working for a high-end retailer in Beverly Hills that specialized in antique estate pieces, known as Frances Klein. There Basta restored and designed pieces from the Victorian, Edwardian, and Art Deco periods. Basta gained an appreciation of the designs and craftsmanship which in turn inspired his own creations.[4]
Aside from his craftsmanship, Basta has become known for his engineering innovations.[5] Much of his jewelry is created with built-in movement. Basta created a pair of earrings with alternating sapphires, tanzanites, garnets, rubies, and diamonds set with ball-bearings in between each section allowing the entire length of the piece to spin independently.[6]
Basta has also become recognized in his field as a platinum expert.[7] In 1986 when information was scarce on the subject, he began to cast in platinum and began to research and study the properties of platinum. Most design houses weren’t using platinum quite yet.[8] Through the process of trial and error, he developed an understanding of the best way to work with the precious metal. Since then, the learning curve has decreased due to the popularity of the metal and the development of resources, equipment and technology.[8] Also, due to his experience with platinum, he has written contributing articles for the Platinum Guild International[4] on the subjects of casting and antique jewelry restoration, as well as articles on designing and manufacturing in platinum.
In 2004 Basta started his own brand. He is based in Century City on Santa Monica Blvd.[9]
In 2005 Basta served as judge at the AGTA Spectrum Awards.
In 2007, Ricardo Basta was approached by Alessandra Gallo Jewellery with designer Kristin Keller, to create a tear drop pin to raise awareness about conflict diamonds and their impact on child soldiers. Ricardo Basta handmade and donated labor and materials for the creation of The Blood Diamond Pin, made for actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling, and Djimon Hounsou, and director, Ed Zwick to wear to the 2007 Oscars Ceremony in support of Amnesty International Campaigns on Child Soldiers and Conflict Diamonds.
In 2017, Ricardo Basta was accepted into the prestigious group, AJDC (American Jewelry Design Council).
From 2007 until 2010, Basta had his first exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There he participated in a group exhibition entitled: Luxe Life: Masterpieces of American Jewelry.[10] The exhibit featured extravagant pieces of jewelry, ranging in age from mid-19th-century to modern.[11] Basta displayed two pieces for the exhibition: a snowflake brooch and a seahorse brooch.
That same year, Basta had his first solo show exhibiting one-of-a-kind brooches at the Gemological Institute of America Museum in Carlsbad, California.[12] The show included pieces made with green sapphire, fire opal, platinum, diamonds, gold, mother-of-pearl, ivory and elephant hair.[13]
In 2018, Basta had several of his pieces featured in the Headley-Whitney Museum of Art with The American Jewelry Design Council.[14]