WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1999

Pearls bring success

By Rachelle Imson

On-Line Forty-Niner

Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but pearls are classier.

No one knows this better than Cal State Long Beach student John Ahr, who recently won fifth place in the 27th International Pearl Design Contest. His design beat out 1,000 other jewelry pieces submitted from 20 countries.

"The award is something I'm quite proud of," said Ahr, who is working toward a master of fine arts degree. "It gives me recognition on an international level."

Ahr will receive an award May 13 at the International Jewelry Fair in Kobe, Japan. The winning designs will be displayed there and in a June exhibition that will be held in Tokyo. For more than two decades, the Japan Pearl Promotion Society has sponsored an annual competition to honor the most innovative use of pearls in contemporary jewelry design.

Ahr's design, titled "Rough Kisses," features seven, 8-millimeter baroque pearls set in the center of a bold, X-shaped link of a bracelet.

"The design expresses the gentle heart one protects in extreme passion," Ahr said.

Ahr has been designing rings, belts, bracelets, brooches and earrings for 16 years.

In 1982, he received a bachelor of arts degree in theater arts from the University of New Mexico. Later, he took a jewelry design class at a community center in Arlington, Va. Afterwards, he moved to San Francisco where he studied at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts.

Since then, he has worked for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he was a program specialist overseeing grants to nonprofit organizations and individual applicants.

Ahr also served as a program officer for the Columbia Charitable Foundation, which gave out grants in areas of the arts, health care and education.

He has traveled all over the country studying and working; it was inevitable that he would win an award for international jewelry design.