This is a small collection that was inspired by the Echinacea flower. You might wonder why this particular flower. I saw it a lot last year and it really stuck out to me. I saw them every time I do a market at Chatham Mills Farmers Market which has the Chatham Mills Pollinator Garden in the front yard and around the parking lot area. I thought these flowers looked weird at first, but then grew to enjoy them. If you follow me on social media, I've posted pictures of one of my most popular ring designs on this flower (who knew that the cone or center of the flower would be a perfect resting spot for a ring!). This was taken by the owner and organizer of my favorite pop-up market group, Art-N-Soul, during a market in 2022.
While they mostly bloom in the summer, I just couldn't wait to make pieces inspired by this flower. Some pieces may be more abstract in their inspiration and others might be more obvious. I always like to think that my jewelry is like art, and art is subjective. I may make something with one intention and someone else might see it as something else!
I wanted to take this inspiration and line it up with Mother's Day coming up because flowers remind me a lot of my own mother and the bond we have.
I also have some leaf pieces that are not exactly inspired by anything in particular but are something I always wanted to try. I decided to add these to this collection because I thought it would make sense. I like plants and greenery too. This is definitely the time of year when we start to see more green as spring comes into bloom. So while the leaves are not specific to any plants, I still felt they were fitting for a springtime collection.
All of these pieces were made from sterling silver wire or sheet. For the leaves, I sawed out each piece, soldered on the "stem" to be an ear wire, hammered, and then lightly etched the leaves to make it look like the veins. I've never really seen myself as one that could draw well, but I wanted to give more character to the leaves so I went with a more sketch-like approach. I think this also lends to the pieces being more natural and realistic, not to mention more unique because I probably cannot replicate each stroke exactly. The more "flower" pieces are made from silver wire in my usual style which is wire formed, soldered, hammered and polished into lightweight pieces of jewelry.
Be sure to check out my full collection!