A Lifetime Of Love

This ring commission takes two lives and transforms them into a song that becomes a piece of jewellery. An epic journey that seeks to record the invisible truth about the connections we form with our mothers. 

My customer wanted me to create a unique piece of jewellery that symbolised her connection with her Mother. Her Mum had passed away recently and she was experiencing overwhelming loss. I asked her if she had any memories of her Mum that she wanted me to use as a starting point. She said her Mum was their whole world, matriarch, giver of love and advice. She always knew the right thing to say. She mentioned that her Mum had always loved the colour blue, a specific aquamarine shade. She wondered if a design based on a crown would be a good place to start. 

I wanted to make the design a bit more about their relationship and their bond.

I started to think about the mother child bond and how it starts in the womb. That connection is so unique and it changes both the mother and the child. Did you know that fingerprints are unique because of the contact the baby has with the womb lining? There are only three main types of fingerprints, (eight if you work for the FBI) and the variations on these that make them unique is the contact inside the womb. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. 

The mother too is changed by the pregnancy. A Facebook friend shared with me this really interesting information on how a baby's cells live on in the mother, a process called Fetal Maternal Microchimerism.

I started to think about this one body with two different heartbeats playing inside it. I researched the heartbeat speeds of both mother and daughter. I expected that the baby's heartbeat would be really fast because it is so small and the mother's much slower but I was surprised to discover that sometimes the mother and baby's heartbeats beat at the same speed. The research I found was medical and said that the baby's heartbeat is monitored to assess its health and if the hearts beat at the same speed it can be difficult to tell them apart. I imagined what this would sound like musically. Two beats sometimes together, sometimes at different speeds. Like two drummers. 

Because my customer had said her mother was a matriarch, I started to look at musical instruments played in matriarchal societies. I also thought about using the shapes of other musical instruments to make a unique piece of jewellery. One that perhaps made a noise. 

I was really excited about the direction that this design was going but I wanted to check with my customer to see if these ideas resonated with her. I sent her a message asking if there was a musical connection between her mum and her? An instrument or a song?

I was really surprised when my customer sent me a message saying her dad was a singer and entertainer and that there had always been music in their home. She sent me a picture of his gravestone that had a treble clef on it. 

It felt as if this idea was destined for this design. 

I started to do some research into artists who take sounds or music and make them into physical objects. This led me to American artist Christine Sun Kim. CK, as she likes to be called, has been deaf since birth and she explores ways to show how she experiences life using musical notation in a completely unique way. 

This is one of her pieces of art. The Sound Of Temperature Rising.

I loved how Christine Sun Kim takes ownership of sound and uses it to share the unique way she experiences this world.

I felt so empowered by her art that I wanted to put down on paper all of the ideas I had been thinking about using gemstones. 

I decided to create a line of gemstones for the life of the daughter and a line of gemstones for the mother. A timeline of their life together. I decided to use aquamarines for the mother, her favourite colour, but I also wanted to use this gemstone because it is the correct colour for the throat chakra. My customer is very spiritual and I knew that she was aware of chakra points and their symbolism. The throat chakra governs the voice and as her mother always knew the right thing to say this seemed perfect as a symbol for her. As my customer had also mentioned the matriarchy and the idea of a crown I chose purple to represent her. Purple is the crown chakra at the top of the head. It represents spiritual connection.