To be frank, I made these rings for me, rather I made one of them for me.  I was looking to have a little ring I can wear backcountry or when I am working with my hands in the garden or around the farm — something meaningful but dainty that can serve as a wedding ring replacement (my wedding ring is uber fancy and has no right being backcountry or wrangling hand lines in the hay field) — and this is what I wound up with.  I’ve named this series “SOS” as in SAVE OUR SOULS.  You can glean whatever meaning or symbolism you want from the name, because once a piece of jewelry is yours it’s all yours to attach meanings to and feelings to and those meanings and feelings can be in line with what the maker intended or totally different.  That’s one of the best things about art, sometimes these things come with a spirit of their own and sometimes the way we receive art IS the spirit of the object or music or painting…

But I digress.  For me, this little ring design features the cross symbol I have been incorporating into my designs for over a year now and it’s all about healing, receiving, and the very Holy Spirit of God I draw near to when I am outside in these landscapes I love.  I often say it’s going outdoors and connecting ourselves to the land, the wind, the lakes and rivers that will save our souls and by that I mean, it’s not those elements that actually save us, but the healing thrum of creation and the abounding presence the Creator we can tangibly feel that stitches us up and makes us whole again.  I go out to run, to hike, to hunt, to fish, to swim, to row, to paddle, to sit quietly, to shout my joy, to weep, to break down, to be built back up again and it saves my soul.

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I am going to try to have these rings listed in the shop for you tomorrow morning at 9AM (mountain time zone — please remember to refresh my shop page at exactly 9AM) — sorry for a Saturday morning shop update, it’s the time I have to do the update and time is love, lately.

Sizes run from 5.5-10 and I have 22 rings.

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I have a few other rings made that feature chrysoprase and agates but I can’t make time to photograph them and build listings until next week.  So hang tight for those!  They’ll be made available at a later date.

XX

I made a pronghorn ring yesterday.  You probably don’t remember but I worked with a similar motif 3 or 4 years ago.  I don’t know what made me suddenly return to it.  I simply sat down in my studio and said to myself, it’s an antelope kind of day, I think!

I’ve been slowly turning over my personal jewelry collection, selling bits and pieces, giving things to friends and family.  It makes me really happy to give my work away, to see an old piece I never wore much gain a new life with someone who cherishes it fully.  More than anything, I like to see the ladies of my life wearing my work.  It gives me a sense of closeness to them, to see something my hands made on their fingers, ears or around their neck.  I don’t know if they have a similar sense when they wear my work, maybe they don’t feel anything at all when they wear it, but it really does mean the world to me to be kept so close to them, to literally have echoes of my own pulse worn closely against their own.

I kept one of my original pronghorn skull rings until perhaps 6 months ago when I parted with it and sent it to a friend.  I reckon, if I miss a piece of jewelry enough, I can always make myself a new one…but I rarely do.  Once these things have left my hands, I generally feel the design has moved past me and out into the ethers.  However, I might make myself a new pronghorn ring.  For me, they are one of the ultimate and unmistakable symbols of the interior West.  When I see the pronghorn in the sage, all the scattered parts of me feel a sense of home.

To see the antelope is to be home.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2017/05/10/12862/