Queen of Color
After earning her Masters Degree with Honors in Painting and Sculpture at the age of 22, Paula went to New York to launch her career as an artist. Soon George Crevoshay, a Ph. D candidate in Asian studies, whom she had met at the University, came wooing her for his wife. Although she loved him, she didn't feel she was ready to get married so she put him off, telling him that if he could support her without her having to work for the next three years so she could dedicate herself exclusively to her art that she would marry him, and he left.
She thought the issue had been settled and was surprised when he showed up two weeks later to announce that he had just applied for, and been awarded both a Fulbright Scholarship and an American Institute of Indian Studies grant to be paid back to back over a period of three years. He then requested and received a stipend for his wife, even though he was not yet married! The Magical Mystery tour began!
So Paula spent the first three years of her married life living in India in a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery studying with His Holiness, the Dali Lama's teachers while George worked on his thesis and translated ancient holy texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan among other scholarly pursuits.
Paula had two one-woman shows of her work in Bombay and Pune, worked as an actress in Hollywood films and set up a dispensary in the monastery, all the while serving the social functions of the wife of a Fulbright Scholar. The British Council for the Arts purchased five paintings for their collection from her Bombay show "Won't you Pull My Leg" which opened at the prestigious Jehangir Art Gallery in 1980.
Although she had made jewelry as gifts for family and friends when she was a student, in India Paula began buying gems and designing jewelry in earnest. The first Crevoshay jewels were meticulously crafted using the finest melee in party colored sapphires, rubies and other gemstones. On returning home, she sold out her collection in the first month. She had to fly back to Asia for more gemstones and an intercontinental lifestyle was born.
Each year as the artist went from success to success and upgraded the size and expense of her stones, the scale of her pieces and her elaborate style was developed. She began to win patrons and recognition and her career blossomed. In addition to special exhibitions, her work is now on permanent display in museums such as the GIA Museum, Carnegie Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.
She has gained renown not only for the graceful beauty and opulent design of her jewels, but especially for her painterly approach to gemstone combinations, which is why the trade press has referred to her as "The Queen of Color".
