I love playing a small part in important moments in people’s lives. The past Valentine’s Day gave another such opportunity … but let me begin at the beginning:
all the way back in September, I was contacted by a young man (and fellow NSCAD graduate) who had found my work online. He started inquiring about getting an engagement ring to propose to his girlfriend with. This young man being an artist himself, he had many lovely ideas, and deep concepts in mind. I loved working with such a creative mind! We tossed ideas back and forth in a multitude of e-mails (I counted: there were almost fifty!) over the course of the next few months. What had originally drawn him to my work was the Onefooter ring, and in the end, that is where we ended up again. There was discussion about setting a big Canadian diamond (like the ring I recently introduced, see here), but he was more interested in a subtler statement. So in the end we settled on two small diamonds set directly into the undulating band of a silver Onefooter ring (it had turned out: she only wears silver).
This required a kind of stonesetting which I am not terribly familiar with – I hadn’t done it since I learned it in university. So I went to consult with my lovely colleague and mentor, Mr. Peter Lawrence. Peter has been making jewellery for decades, and is always and cheerfully willing to help me out, show me techniques, and give advice, all of which I appreciate immensely. I have a video of him showing me how to set the stone, but I haven’t figured out yet how to upload it to this blog; I’ll do it soon, I promise! In the meantime, here is a photo of Peter in his studio at the Halifax waterfront:
And so, with Peter’s help, the stones were set right into the crossing bands of a silver Onefooterring. This is the result, just before I packaged it up to ship it:
and so …
I was sitting at the edge of my seat all Valentine’s Day, so excited to know that the recipient would propose to the love of his life by presenting her with the ring I had custom-made for him!
I asked him to share with my readers how it went, and here is part of what he had to say:
“I asked her at a favourite restaurant of ours in Ottawa. I toasted to us and then pulled the ring from the pocket of my cardigan. I stood up from my chair and went to sit next to her to have her try it on. She loved it! I spent a good 20 minutes telling her why it was meaningful to me and about where it came from — you and your practice.”
Aaaaaahhhhhh, I just love those kinds of stories: the care he took to think about creating exactly the right piece, the secrecy of finding out her ringsize and preferences, and the suspense of the Valentine’s Day Proposal … beautiful!
I am a hopeless romantic!
