I am busy preparing for the Lincoln Art and Balloon Festival coming up this weekend and I noticed I had never photographed some rings I recently finished. Designing rings has turned out to be a joyous endeavor. I find that rings are much more three dimensional than other jewelry. I don’t just mean that they wrap around your finger. If you ignore the shank and just think about some item hovering over the top face of your finger the designs that come to mind are quite different than thinking of an element against the chest or dangling from the ear. It has been creatively invigorating to make rings in a way I never expected. There are so many possibilities for movement and so many tiny considerations that make a ring interesting. The kinds of questions that I ask when I sit down to start a new ring are: what shape should the shank be, how wide, should it have texture, should both sides of the shank have texture, should they be the same or not, should they match the top element. Of course I also have a theme in mind for the project like a leaf or a flower or a bowl shape. The idea can evoke a mood or a feeling. For the ring above I wanted something green, something that felt like walking in the forest. The idea I wanted to bring to the fore was about calmness and peace.
Joan's Creative Fire 