Re-releasing & revisiting this collection has also been a study of my memory for me; I’ve been holding the dueling felt senses in my body since the choice was finalized ~ of an odd kind of dread and also, a kind of wonder as I actually started excavating. It became : a way of looking back as a way of moving forward. Being haunted as a way to confront oneself.

This collection was finished and released 10 years ago in the same space I write from now, a loft that feels more like a living thing than creaky old floors that can make it sound like I'm living inside an old wooden ship, in a Victorian era building that I love the way one might love a person in terms of the things you can come to expect/accept, especially in its mercurial natures that can be timed almost like the tides. It has been the locus for many subsequent collections and errant pieces of jewelry that never quite made but live in my sketchbooks. People who have become the most important to me have crossed its threshold or have lived under the building’s same massive roof. I left for awhile, I returned last year; my feet walk the same paths and I sleep in the same room, but outside the world has changed; I have changed, as so many of us have, as you may have too.

10 years ago I was also changing - I was reassembling myself after a particularly intense sea-change and psychic zip code relocation. I was dreaming of the sea, haunted by it almost, if one can be haunted by something they were born to love, born so close to I feel brine runs in my blood and salt is ever present in the seemingly daily tangles I contend with in my hair. I was dreaming of my father ~ a man who very much feels like an has felt like Prospero to me, complicated, nuanced, a little terrifying, but magical. The storm in The Tempest was one I was living in, and like Miranda, I was in awe of love, and like Ferdinand, I was carrying my grief stricken heart around wrapped in satin. It was a piece of worn sea glass, smooth but still sharp. Like Ariel, I had felt the freedom of being newly released from a cage ( tree ) of a previous situation but longing to feel even freer, freer from the past, as I understand it now. This is where these reference points of inspiration were coming from for my back then, even if I couldn’t fully articulate it then.  I’m adding in some new inspiration to these pieces, since that’s what makes it interesting for me now, 10 years later, struggling to heal from a series of storms, weathering this same strange world with so many of you, and choosing hope each morning, with a heart filled with wonder that I offer to you in hopes that in doing so, you may find something that resonates or speaks to you, and perhaps in feeling so, you’ll maybe feel less alone.

Original writing from 2012 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Based on the 'Sea Witch' from Hans Christian Anderson's 'The Little Mermaid', this ring features a manipulated shell skeleton, cast from a slice of a real shell. retaining all the details of the original, its odd shape stands high off the finger, simulating a kind of dark, organic weapon.

Symbolizing a transformation, much as The Little Mermaid is granted a change of form, this ring suggests the transformation of the shell, paired down to show its bone structure and its inner landscape.

Cast in sterling silver & oxidized to achieve my favorite shade of gloomy grey, the ring stands a little over and inch off the finger.

Details:

 - Shell above ring band measures 23mm at its widest

- Sits 25mm off of the finger when the point of the shell is pointed up

- Sits 20mm off of the finger when the point of the shell is not pointed up

- Solid Sterling Silver

- Hand oxidized to our favorite shade of gloomy grey and then finished to highlight the silver beneath

 -Jess wears two rings stacks in last photo to show how two can be worn together in an interesting way, please note this listing is for one ring.

***IMPORTANT***

This jewel is handmade to order, just for you, with care and focus. Please allow approximately 5 weeks for creation before shipping.                   

Visit the Policy Page to make an educated and informed purchase HERE.

If you have further questions, we are always here to serve you in a kind and timely manner: via bloodmilkjewels@gmail.com