Solitaire

One of our most popular designs and a principle of minimalism that we find ourselves constantly returning to in one form or another.

This design really looks modern and contemporary, but also could have been a product of a Bauhaus philosophy from the 1930's or 40's. The strength of the solid lines framing the stone are as simple as they can be, yet bold and definite, and still quite elegant and classical looking. This is one design that really benefits from attention to the visual balance and to the proportion of the size of the diamond and the weight of the line/plate. It can delicately accentuate a small perfect stone, or boldly border a monster.
In future posts we'll show some of the many variations on this principal design, and it's interesting how changing something small can have a huge effect on the finished ring, and how the wearers taste influences their ring at the design stage.

Little Black Ring

It has been a busy few weeks, thankfully, getting everyones pieces ready for christmas.

The finish line is in sight now, and the little elves are falling asleep on their feet and looking forward to Santa Claus.

Thought we would post something small and simple to keep the blog ticking over, and perhaps the nicest small and succinct idea from our archives is the "Little Black Ring".

We wanted to have a series that we could add to that would be an antithesis to the bright sparkle of most regular jewellery, but not sacrifice the idea of glamour and style. And we arrived at the idea of something that would sit in a woman's wardrobe as a staple item and eternally be ready to step out in and look a million dollars. Just like the little black dress, no woman's armoury is complete without a Little Black Ring !

We chose for LBR-1 a large Hematite with a beautiful dark metallic grey/green gemstone. 

The beauty of this stone is that though it is opaque, it is still cut in the fashion of a Round Brilliant, so you get the beauty of the symmetry and the faceting that your eye isn't usually drawn to. To our mind this is one of the most interesting gem stones we have seen. Given the interesting visual of the cutting, we couldn't resist opening up some of the underneath to highlight more of the stone.

And of course framing the dark circle with a border of small 1-point diamonds lifts the whole thing.

We have made I think 4 versions of Little Black Rings to date.

They are available to commission from our studio and also through DesignYard's fine jewellery gallery in Dublin's city centre.

Noble Thoughts

We will be giving a talk in Trinity College as part of the Innovation Festival 2010.
Along with Seamus Gill (silversmith) and Alan Ardiff (jeweller/artist) we will be talking about innovation and change in the field of making objects from metal and our respective crafts from 5000bc right up to today. And we will consider what is influencing design and craft now and how it may develop in the coming decades.

Monday 15th November, 12.30, Large Conference Room, O'Reilly Institute, Trinity College
innovationdublin.ie event page

ps: (pat on the back for witty title)

Special offer for the end of the year

We just got a parcel of very nice and unusual gemstones from one of our friends in Germany.
Very beautiful gems with unusual cuts.
My personal favourite is the Marquise shape Rose Quartz (12.52ct, incl in pic above),
or maybe it's the cinnamon coloured Portugese-cut Tourmaline (6.53ct),
or maybe .....

Hand carved wedding bands

These were wedding bands that we made for Jenny & Steve.
It was one of those occasions where a customer had been inspired/captivated by something that had also previously held our attention. Once Steve started describing this piece of early Irish metalwork, we knew we were talking about the same object. We have over the course of the years been drawn back to this again and again. It was great to finally get the opportunity to use it as the inspiration for a piece and this instantly became a labour of love.

The original antiquity is a detail from a bronze bit which would have been part of a chariot harness.
It was found in a peat bog in Galway and dates from around the 1st Century BC. This period of "La Tene" early celtic work has very elegant detailing, far more graceful than later 'celtic' work.
We wanted to keep the simplicity of the original scrolls, and the elegance of the space that this period leaves around decoration. And it was important to Steve and ourselves that this be looser in execution compared to a lot of our very clean and crisp definition of more modern jewellery designs.

To add some balancing detail to Jenny's band, she brought us in a photo of some stone carving to indicate a visual that she liked the look&feel of.

And this became the inspiration for the back of her band, with a collection of diamonds set along the top half of the ring.

Diamond ring

We thought this would be a nice example of our diamond rings to start with for this blog. We made this recently for Elaine and wanted to find something that would be a nice balance between traditional elements and a contemporary flavour. In the end we arrived at the idea of having the style of the channel setting holding the small diamonds on the shoulders of the ring to continue unbroken into becoming the four claws that set the centre diamond.

We like that there is a smooth visual line right the way through the diamonds, unbroken by metal as would be the norm in a more traditional setting.

We were also conscious that we wanted to leave plenty of scope for the eventual wedding bands to sit flush alongside the ring so we decided not to have the setting drop from the frame around the centre stone. This led to ideas on opening up some of the space underneath, and we are always interested in detail where you get an opportunity to see something more of a gemstone from a different angle. It is always nice to frame the point of a gemstone and highlight the space around the culet (or point) of the diamond.

It was important to us that the whole form look uncomplicated. Once we concentrated on the setting on the side flowing into the top of the ring, then we wanted the ring to appear as one piece as opposed to two separate elements. So the angle and curve around the top is a continuation of the angles from the shoulder, almost as if you took an egg and carved away all of the negative space around the ring from one block. It looks great on Elaine's hand and is still relatively understated and elegant.
We are really looking forward to seeing the wedding bands and what direction they may go in to complete the set.

Embrace no:2

One of the things we have always been wondering about in designing rings is the point at which you draw the line between showing off the purity of the gemstone, having a clean contemporary shape, and adding embellishment or ornament to a piece to add character or atmosphere.

The Embrace series gives us an opportunity to explore these ideas and return to common themes in very different pieces of jewellery. We like the way that they can look quite different from each other, but over time really form a body of work, pushing ideas of what works and what is possible.

Some of these have been commissioned by our customers while others have begun purely as an exercise on our part and then found their owners afterwards. One thing they have in common is that they are usually a little more extravagant than the more regular commissions that we receive from people.

Over the last 10 years we have made quite a few sets in this series and we will post the others as time goes by.

With this set we wanted to have a centre stone that stood on its own and could be worn separately. The setting for this is very minimal and we really wanted the metal work to disappear and take a back seat to the gem itself. The idea then was that you would have other elements that could be worn in combination to further enhance, embellish or dress the ring up for how flamboyant you wanted to be on any particular occasion.

The centre ring has a concave cut Citrine set in 18kt yellow gold. The concave faceting is really sumptuous and turns what would have been quite an ordinary stone into something really impressive, the way that it throws back so much light and colour.

The first piece we decided on was a collar to surround some of the space around the gemstone. Starting with the idea of a collar literally we were looking for something iconic that jumped out at us straightaway, it could have been Elvis in a Vegas jumpsuit, or an Elizabethan ruff, but once we considered Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon there was no escaping it. We made this in 18kt white gold and set it with diamonds to contrast against the minimal colour of the centre piece.

The next stage was we wanted to have an alternative to the Ming collar, something that would be both more decorative and provide an overall more subdued piece. For this we looked at indian woodblock patterns from fabric printing. We remembered seeing some very interesting wood blocks in the Chester Beatty museum here in Dublin and this kicked off the design for this ring.
We like the way that it is quite detailed, but tucks in very neatly around the gemstone and peeps out, breaking the outline of the piece as you wear it.

And finally we wanted to make something that could be worn with either combination. We wanted it to provide an accent that would set the rest of the piece off, both in shape and colour. At first we weren't entirely sure what this might be. eventually we arrived at the thought, what if it was a line of colour, what if it actually raised and formed an arc across the whole thing as it sits on your hand.
So we cam to the line of Rubies set in 18kt yellow gold.

I have watched from afar at events where I have been at where this piece has been worn by it's now owner, and it is interesting to see the reaction that it gets. I have seen it journey around a room as each person took their turn to try it on, each person going through the same process of discovering and deciphering how the rings fit together, and then trying each combination to decide on their favourite, before passing it on to the next person beside them.
When we made this first we genuinely wondered if we had made it too high to be feasibly wearable. We have been pleasantly surprised by peoples willingness to go with it so enthusiastically.
90% of the pieces we make are practical and wearable as everyday jewellery, so it is nice every now and again to stretch out with a piece like this. As you will see in a future post, we pushed this further with subsequent rings. We have still to find the point at which people are unwilling to wear something fantastic.
Most of this formed itself on paper and sketches before we got anywhere near actually forming the metal itself. In future posts we'll try to scan or include bits of the background material to show you bits of the inspiration behind the work, or how it may have changed and developed from drawing to finished piece.

So there you go. Post number 1. If there is anything you want to ask or add please feel free to post comments or email questions. We are always happy to receive feedback and answer questions.