Hidden Hope Sterling Silver Collection

I am an anxious person by nature.

My mind wanders to the worst-case scenario and I find myself constantly in a mind/heart battle with my heart holding hope like a waving flag while my mind flings doubt in front of my face with defiance.

 

I had a dream a few weeks ago that I had given birth and was holding my baby girl in my arms. She was covered from head to toe in words.

Small little cursive reminders: love, hope, joy, peace. They covered her skin like a thin veil and when I kissed her head they remained.

The doctor assured me that they would wear off, but I remember that I felt not one bit concerned.

I knew the word would wear off, but the meanings would remain.

 

It was that dream that gave me the desire to create this little rustic collection with more than just pretty stones and silver.

I wanted each piece to leave a message of hope for the wearer.

I've hidden the hope behind layers of silver against the skin so the only person to know what that little adornment means is the wearer.

 

The first is a teardrop of dryhead agate.



I've coaxed mountains out of the back of the ring with an eagle soaring above the peaks.

There is no mountain too high for the eagle. They float gracefully above the treacherous rocks on the cliff face and dip in and out of the deepest valleys with pride and confidence.

To have the heart of the eagle....



 

The second is a band of sterling with the same eagle, this time soaring over an entire range of mountains.

I've made the eagle large and close with the mountains smaller against the silver sky. The peaks are perfectly jagged, no soft bluffs on which to land.

 

 

On the inside, a message of hope for the wearer. "No mountain is too high." Not for the eagle and not for you or me either.



A second sterling band, this time an unruly vine bursting into a starburst bloom curves around the finger. There's no garden, no pot, just the growth of the vine in defiance of the impossibility. 

On the inside of this band?

"Never cease to grow."

There is hope in the change that comes with growth in the new place that we find ourselves after the growing pains have ceased. 

The last is a marquis of variscite.

The sea foam green that roils and boils on the surface of this stone reminded me of the sea during a storm how the water moves in completely unpredictable ways. 

Behind the sea, a tiny boat sails under the storm, battered, but not broken, and not sunk.

Storms last only a moment.

There is always the sun on the other side.

 

These are all finished by hand, dipped and dipped to oxidize them and then rubbed and rubbed to bring out the glow of the silver.

I hope the messages speak to you and that wherever you are, mountain, valley, storm or fallow soil, that your heart will remind you to hope.

 

"Hope is the dream of a soul awake."

- French Proverb

 

HERE