The First Commission- Maureen's Ring

As I promised last time, here is the story of my first piece of commission work.

Towards the end of my second year at university, we had a series of assessments about clients and commissions. This covered the subject of dealing with customers in relation to repairs and custom work. The university advertised internally for potential clients to put their hands up to act as clients and each student was given their own cases to work on.

Maureen's Ring photographed by Christopher Orchard.

My client was Maureen. She wanted a dress ring designed, and chose the materials of sterling silver, a baguette cut peridot, and two, square cut amethysts. The design was then left entirely to me and my imagination. The baguette peridot that I sourced for the job is particularly lovely and I decided that the best approach was to try to show off the gems to the highest degree possible. I therefore set upon designing an open-sided piece where the pavilion of each stone would be visible side-on. The band underneath was highly polished to reflect the colours of the gems both out the sides of the ring as well as up through the stones themselves. Maureen loved the design I came up with, and whilst actual execution of the "jobs" was not an essential part of the assessment, we agreed on a fee for the piece and I went ahead and made the ring that I had dreamed up into reality. And so, here it is. My first ever, completed, gem-set design! 

Maureen's Ring photographed by Christopher Orchard.

I could not have asked for a better first client than Maureen. She is a beautiful person and was a pleasure to work with. I love bumping into her around town every now and then. She is always happy to chat, tell me of her recent adventures and catch up on how my career is progressing. Best of all, she never fails to inform me that she continues to enjoy wearing my ring and gets lovely comments on it wherever she goes.

Love from The Jeweller. xx