A story of letting go....

These rings have traveled far and wide. I first created them in Australia as part of a self-directed body of work, which was based on playing with anodizing and working with Titanium. As I could not find Ti where I was living in a form that I could make into rings, I ended up purchasing a Ti rod from Reactive Metals here in the U.S.

The rod arrived, and I embarked on learning and applying a series of techniques that I had no knowledge of. First, came the lathe. This was a large, industrial lathe that I was introduced to. I learned how to drill out a variety of ring sizes into the rod, and then how to slice them at varying widths. Then, it was on to grinding. I did some grinding of them on the steel grinder in the sculpture studio, but then moved onto the lapidary grinders in the metals studios to get the shapes. Most of the shapes are simply an exercise in exploration.

Following that, I used a special set of files to smooth edges and sand each ring. Some were brought to more of a polish, others were left with a texture. This was followed by cleaning them, and finally, anodizing them. Each ring is anodized to match the color of an endangered plant from Australia. I decided to do that as a way to educate the buyer (if they're interested), which can be passed on to other people who remark about the jewelry. Sort of a "pay it forward" education about endangered plants, which is usually something people don't think about too much. After all, most of them aren't cute and fuzzy like leopards.

These rings (the ones that are left) will be part of my clearance sale starting July 1. It is a month long sale, and you can find out more about them at my Etsy Shop.