He started as an apprentice at the age of 18 with Williams Silversmiths in Costa Mesa, California, where he first learned lapidary and silversmithing.  He refined his lapidary skills over the next five years while working with John Tolle Designs in Laguna Beach, California.  Returning to his hometown, Columbus, Ohio, he met Cipriano Santa Maria, and further developed his metalsmithing skills under the tutelage of this master jeweler.  For several years, Mark worked with David Sacco, who is well known today for the designs he creates for his celebrity clientele in Maui.  Mark’s first opportunity to focus exclusively on his own custom designs came with his association with All That Glitters.  Following that, he started his own design studio, Abbott Crafts, later Mark Abbott Designs, and over the next few years opened two successful retail jewelry stores; Mark Abbott Jewelers. 

 His superior craftsmanship is a result of ongoing experimentation - exploring the limitations and possibilities of natural materials and ancient techniques.  Every design is handcrafted in his studio and bears his registered logo.  The majority of his pieces are fashioned from gold or sterling silver utilizing the lost wax method; a casting process that is thousands of years old.  Using this technique, Mark casts diamonds, and other heat tolerant stones right into the metal, insuring that they will never be lost.  This method also enables him to produce curvilinear designs that would be difficult using other techniques.  For accent or contrast, he may fuse gold to sterling silver, inlaying one metal into another, or add engraving or enamel work to a piece.

 Mark’s originality, imagination and talent are reflected in his unique and innovative contemporary jewelry pieces.  As a specialist in inlay and lapidary (the art of stonecutting and shaping), he uses a wide spectrum of gemstones, and likes to play with unusual combinations of textures, colors, shapes and patterns.  Many of his one-of-a-kind creations are dictated by and built around the features of a particular stone. 

 Designs that he refers to as his “fun pieces” have physical movement, including parts that swivel, rotate, roll and slide and most recently, link bracelets that cascade up and down your arm.  

 Mark believes that comfort is as important as design aesthetic.  No matter how beautiful, if jewelry is not comfortable, it will not be frequently worn.  When you slip one of his rings onto your finger, you immediately notice that it feels different from a manufactured piece. 

 Mark is a very prolific artist and continuously sketches new ideas.  A testimonial to this is the display of over 1,000 wax models of his designs featured in his showroom.   Each design has been numbered and documented by first casting a “master” in sterling, which faithfully reproduces every detail of the original wax model.