The Ring With Bite- A Snake For Jenni

Some clients come to me because they love my design aesthetic. Others choose me as their jeweller because I have the skills and attention to detail that they are after. This job was definitely the latter. I've never really been an animal jewellery type of person and this snake has little to share with my own sense of design.

Jenni sells handcrafted glass beads that she makes from molten glass in a technique called lampworking. We met at the Old Bus Depot Markets in Canberra where we both sell our wares. Recently, Jenni brought me a little bundle of her old gold jewellery that she wanted to recycle along with a hand-drawn picture of the snake ring she wanted made.

And so the making of the snake ring began. I melted down Jenni's old jewellery into a solid gold ingot, then spent hours rolling, forging, hammering, sawing and filing away at the metal. The process was painful! I mean literally. Jenni's little bundle of gold included several hollow charms. In what can only be labeled as complacency, I totally forgot the dangers of heating hollow objects. The air inside of the piece expands as it is heated and can cause the jewellery to explode. The best way to combat this is by simply drilling a small hole in the piece, allowing the air to escape. Of course I didn't even give it a thought. I just threw the jewellery into my crucible and put the torch to it. I was lucky to escape with a very minor burn to my eyelid and a few singed eyelashes. The other little bite that came from this snake is a cut to my index finger where my saw slipped whilst scoring one of those many scales into the surface of the snake. I wonder if the day will ever come that I stop injuring my poor little fingers whilst making jewellery?

So in the end was it all worth it? Absolutely! I feel a great sense of pride looking at the asp that I have carved from solid gold. The piece reminds me of something from ancient Egypt. I can imagine queen Cleopatra adorned in snake rings and arm bands which would have been made using the same techniques as I have used to create this ring. I was stoked to get home from the markets yesterday to find a message from Jenni on facebook saying that she was so excited to have her new ring. She said it is "so much better" than she imagined. Another happy customer. Thanks Jenni, you are a beautiful friend and I hope you enjoy your ring.

Love from The Jeweller. xx