JEWELLERY
Jewellery as storytelling. Small sculptures that are necessarily about touch and specialness. A selected portfolio from 2020 and before
Μέδουσα
Sterling silver & bronze
Commission, Summer 2020
The name "Medusa" comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning "to protect, to rule over." That is the Medusa I carved. Based on the classical myth, "Le Rire de la Méduse" by Hélène Cixous, and my own personal understanding of Medusa's story. The bronze in this ring was melted from an old bronze coin that had been given to my client as a gift by another artist.
Notice the silver eyes and bronze inlay on the back of the ring.
777 Ring
Sterling silver
Commission, Autumn 2020
A collaboration with artist STEEP Daniels, artist and founder of the 777overcoming initiative. Learn more at http://steepdaniels.com/
Steep and I know each other from being involved in the street art scene in Toronto’s Kensington Market. He knew me for selling jewellery on the sidewalk. I knew him as a portrait artist. Turns out we both had a lot more going on.
When we first talked about this ring, Steep had too many irons in the fire for me to list here - from organizing skydiving trips with Drake and patients at Sick Kids, to his first painting retrospective with Broken Cage Gallery. I wanted to make a ring with lots of gravity to help keep him grounded in the midst of that storm. This is the kind of ring a king would use to stamp his wax seals.
This is part of a small edition available for sale through STEEP Daniels.
Reliquary Ring
Sterling silver & antique gold
Commission, Summer 2020
My client brought me a collection of amulets she had inherited from her grandmother. She asked me to incorporate them into a ring. The ring was to keep her grandmother's golden Madonna always touching her hand - but to do so privately, without presenting any religious iconography outwardly. The golden amulet was set into the silver ring, reflecting a carved Madonna copied from another of her grandmother’s amulets. The outside of the ring is designed after her grandmother’s crucifex, and other jewellery again presented formally outside of the Christian tradition.
This ring has three parts: an inner ring, an outer sheath, and the golden amulet held between them. In the above pictures you can see the seam between the inner and outer rings. They are held together mechanically, with no welding or soldering. On the hidden surface between the two layers of the ring is another detail of the story which was only ever shown to my client.
Tea-Shell
Sterling silver, 22 karat gold, Oaxacan seashells
2019
I spent some time in the Winter of 2019 on the coast of Oaxaca. On previous trips, I had usually travelled rough. This time, I had a vacation in spite of myself.
On my last day on the beach, feeling that I hadn’t really experienced the place Leo style, I stripped down and headed South along a rocky peninsula. Barefoot, I burnt my feet in the red, dusty sand. I climbed a small cliff and found that it was a cliff on the other side as well: a rocky spine. I crossed ponds frozen over with salt.
I found the place where the fisher birds eat their meals and leave their hollow sea shells. Each shell looked like one of the ocean’s eyes. I collected a pile to take with me. It felt too greedy, so I only took a few from the pile. I listened to the ocean lapping on the Southernmost stones of Mexico for a while before heading back to land.
Return
Sterling silver, precious & reclaimed metal antiquities
2018
Artificial gemstones made from material reclaimed from fine jewellery, precious metal objets-d’art, colonial antiquities, and workshop scraps. This was an effort to turn culture back into nature and led to the use of this reclaimed material in Lionize. One of the first gemstones made this way was flung into a field near Stratford, Ontario by a friend of mine from ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ. The third part of Artefact, my sustainable jewellery project with Jared Daugharty.
Elevate
Sterling silver, gold
2017
New forms cast from molds of antique metalwork in sterling silver and gold. This was the second part of Artefact, in which we attempted to elevate the folk tradition of silverware jewellery.
Salvage
Reclaimed sterling silver & antique silver plate
I learned to make jewellery from silverware from friends of mine in the street art scene in Ottawa when I was starting out as an artist. Later, I would return to this folk craft as the first part of Artefact, my sustainable jewellery project with Jared Daugharty.