Do you ever think about how many coincidences must have happened for you to meet your partner and your friends?
The chances of you being born at all are one in 400 trillion, scientists have calculated. You are a walking miracle.
The chances of two people being born and meeting each other at the same time in history? I don’t know how slim the chances of this are.
You have met a lot of people in your lifetime, and you know that there is something very special about the people you choose to have in your life. There’s a unique connection that makes you want to be around them and to share your life with them. They add something special to your experience of being alive.
I was thinking a lot about what it was that made people want to connect and bond when I created my Stay Together collection.
The Stay Together collection has two forms, one matt one polished, that curve to meet each other and which are held together by a bond of solid gold wire. The pieces face each other as if they are reflecting the similarities between them. The gold is not soldered on but threaded through a hole that lines up in the space between them. The golden thread is the invisible bond that makes us want to stay close to them. This is a unique way to express in a piece of jewellery the desire to Stay Together. It is part of my creative journey to develop a new language for jewellery.
I asked my husband what it was about me that made him think I was the one for him. He said he liked my unique and somewhat contradictory blend of sincerity and playfulness. I also was attracted to his sense of mischief and fun that I knew contained no malice. I think that when we meet someone we connect with, we see a reflection of something in them that is also in us.
What is the unique aspect of your partner or friends that drew you to each other?
I started to think about people who were denied the chance to ever meet in person because they were not alive at the same time. Which people from different points in time had a connection of sorts that would have had interesting conversations, had they been given the chance to meet. I created some AI images of these fictional encounters and called them Impossible Meetings.
Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln playing chess on the same side of the board. The only pieces on the board are the black. Two men who were hated for their attempts to improve the lives of black people in America. An idea that people hated so much that both men were assassinated. I would love to listen to the conversations they would have.
Amelia Earhart and Bas Jan Ader
Ameila Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, disappeared flying across the Pacific Ocean July 2nd 1937.
Bas Jan Ader disappeared trying to sail across the Atlantic solo in July 1975.
Bas Jan Ader was a Dutch artist who examined the experience of failure. His performances involved hanging from a tree until the branch broke (it didn’t but he fell anyway), deliberately cycling into a canal and choosing to picnic inside a trap that he had created. Amelia Earhart was motivated by achieving success. I think it would be fascinating to know if they thought that the choices they had made were worth the risks that they took and if the desire to push the boundaries was what they had in common.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Greta Thunberg.
"A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong it is until it's in hot water." Eleanor Roosevelt's famous quote.
I would love to listen in to Greta Thunberg and Eleanor Roosevelt chatting about what it is like to be a strong women in a world where some people don't want to hear what you have to say.
I've created their imaginary meeting in a flooded McDonalds restaurant. Danish art group, Superflex, created a film of a McDonalds restaurant slowly filling with water. The short film is about drawing attention to destruction that is happening in our time, especially that which we can control.
If you haven't seen the film take a look. It makes very uncomfortable viewing to see something familiar and small suffering the effects of climate change. It is perhaps more powerful than watching ice caps melt because that can feel abstract and unreal whereas the destruction of somewhere you visit regularly has more impact.
Robert Falcon Scott and Tenzing Norgay.
Two men famous for coming second.
It was thanks to Tenzing Norgay that Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the top of Mt Everest. His knowledge and skill were the reason for their successful climb. Not only did he navigate them accurately but his quick reactions even saved the life of Sir Edmund when he fell into a crevasse. Before he hit the bottom, Mr. Norgay quickly secured his rope using his ice pick and saved Hillary's life.
Robert Scott was second to reach the South Pole, missing out by just five weeks. His team did not make it back alive. In their belongings, the rescue team found fossils that proved there were once trees on the South Pole. His diary was also found and he had written, "Each man in his way is a treasure. But take comfort in that I die at peace with the world and myself - not afraid."
People who sacrifice their own comforts for the benefit of others must share the same set of values that they would recognise in each other.
Vincent Van Gogh and Rosalind Franklin.
Two hugely talented people, both died at 37 and both were not given the recognition they deserved during their lifetime.
Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting while he was alive. He died in poverty without knowing the influence he would go on to have. How did he become famous after his death? His sister in law carried on the legacy of her husband Theo who had been trying to raise the profile of Vincent's work. She sold some of Vincent’s works, loaned others out for exhibitions and – also very importantly – published his letters to Theo. Vincent and Theo shared a very special relationship which can be discovered in these letters. The correspondence between the brothers, which detailed Vincent's fascinating life story captured people's attention and is one of the reasons why his work gradually took the whole world by storm. Without Jo’s dedication, this would never have been possible.
Dr Rosalind Franklin's work revealed the twisted ladder shape of DNA that we are all familiar with, the double helix. She was the first person to use X-ray diffraction to photograph the molecule containing the genetic instructions for the development of all living organisms. Known as Photograph 51, this image is treated as the philosopher’s stone of molecular biology, the key to the ‘secret of life’.
Unfortunately, she died of cancer. The nobel prize was given to Watson and Crick who used her discovery in their work and the prize is not awarded posthumously.
However, many people are working hard to ensure she is not forgotten. Rosalind Franklin got some of the recognition she long deserved when the new UK-assembled rover that was sent to Mars in 2020 was named after her.
The honour follows a public call for suggestions that drew nearly 36,000 responses from right across Europe. Astronaut Tim Peake unveiled the name at the Airbus factory in Stevenage where the robot was assembled.
At the naming ceremony Franklin’s sister Jenifer Glynn remembered her sister: “In the last year of Rosalind’s life, I remember visiting her in hospital on the day when she was excited by the news of the Soviet Sputnik satellite — the very beginning of space exploration,” she said on Thursday.
“She could never have imagined that over 60 years later there would be a rover sent to Mars bearing her name, but somehow that makes this project even more special.”
Our own lives carry so much power and the ripples of what we do not only affects those around us now but they carry on to future generations in ways we could not possibly imagine.
What two people from different times in history do you think would make a special connection if they could meet?
Doesn't it make it feel like a miracle that trillions of coincidences have resulted in you being here at the same time as the people in your lives that you wouldn't want to be without? Isn't it important to let them know that you value the connection that you share and that you want to keep it strong?
Stay Together has been bought by people to give to their partners at anniversaries or Christmas, for parents to give to their children when they leave home and even given by colleagues to someone moving on to a new job or retiring. It is something for a person to wear and always be reminded that they are special.
#history #connections #relationships
The images in this blog are copyrighted and if you would like to use them get in touch christine@christinesadler.com