Page 4 - BusinessWest March 2, 2026

All That Glitters
James Murning Creates Memories at Aurora Jewelers
BY JOSEPH BEDNAR
[email protected]
jewelry — some of it for pretty
notable names. You might have
James Murning designs a lot of
seen — and heard — one of
them at the recent Super Bowl
halftime.
“I design a lot of pieces for musicians,”
said Murning, owner of Aurora Jewelry in
Easthampton. “I just sent out a piece for
Bad Bunny, called the heritage necklace,
which essentially is paying homage to Puer-
to Rico.”
Elaborating, he noted that “the cen-
terpiece is a diamond-encrusted star for
the flag of Puerto Rico, and two bezel-set
aquamarines represent Bad Bunny’s birth
month. And then there are three-dimen-
sional flor de maga flowers, which are the
national flower of Puerto Rico, and there is
actually a dog tag hanging off the back of
the chain with the city coordinates of the
city block he was born in.”
“If somebody comes in and says,
‘I’ve got some stuff from my
grandmother or grandfather,
these are heirloom pieces, I want
to melt them down and get paid
cash,’ 90% of the time, if it’s
something really cool, I will tell
them, ‘you should not melt this.
Let us repurpose it and give it a
new life.’”
For such big-name commissions, “we
work with a variety of different people in
rock, country, and EDM,” Murning added,
but he takes as much pleasure in creating
meaningful pieces for everyone — jewelry
that’s not only aesthetically pleasing, but
offers plenty of meaning in the design itself.
“We also do a ton of repurposing,” he
said. “So if somebody comes in and says,
‘I’ve got some stuff from my grandmother
or grandfather, these are heirloom pieces, I
want to melt them down and get paid cash,’
90% of the time, if it’s something really cool,
I will tell them, ‘you should not melt this.
Let us repurpose it and give it a new life.’
We can take the stones out and put them in
a new ring; that way, they have a story to tell
20 years from now.”
Just to mention one example, “I had a
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MARCH 2, 2026
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