This art form had its most prominent supporter in Peter Karl Faberge’, “Goldsmith of the Czars”, who besides and beyond his celebrated “Eggs”, left us a rich legacy of carved figurines, each displaying the colorful inlay of various types of gemstones. The resourceful artisans from Idar-Oberstein though, are to be credited for the popularization of this medium and, during WW II, immigrants from that region brought their creativity to my original country, Brazil. My talented uncle Dalton learned from a couple of them, and over twenty-five years later taught me. His work was my inspiration, and I was certainly helped by my background of more than ten years already working with industrial diamond tools, but it was from him that I learned how to pick the right stone, to generate accurate proportions, detail work, or even giving a piece an expression of its own. Loyal to my personal preferences, I early decided to focus on feathered wildlife, and ever since I moved to Florida, twenty years ago, I’ve been expanding my horizons way beyond South American tropical birds — marveled at many local species, soon I was doing from chickadees to great blue herons, from ruby-throated hummingbirds to bald eagles - as in many of the commissions taken over the years, no feathered subject is out of consideration now.