Men’s Rings

July 16th, 2010

I have created jewelry for almost everyone in my family–everyone except for my husband. He’s a sculptor and so I guess I was a bit intimidated to create something for someone who I think is so talented himself. But I got over that and a few months ago I set out to create a new wedding band for him to celebrate 15 years of marriage.

In thinking about the design of the ring, I wanted to incorporate things that were meaningful to us, but I wanted to do it in an abstract, and not too obvious manner. He’s not the kind of man who wears serious bling, so I knew it had to be simple.

We met seventeen years ago and our courtship basically took place in the North Carolina mountains. We hiked and even rock climbed and he proposed to me at a waterfall. So I wanted to somehow convey those mountains in the ring.

I used 16 gauge sterling silver sheet and sized it for his ring size in width. The height of the ring is about a half inch. While it was still flat, I fashioned some wire in the shape of mountains and rolled it (with some assistance from Ruthie Cohen & her husband David at Mountain Metalsmiths School of Lapidary & Design) on a roller press. Then the ring was formed and soldered and I used a dremel bit to go over the mountains and also to carve the “fields” below.

The result was an abstract ring that was exactly what I wanted it to be. I engraved the inside and gave it to him on our anniversary. He genuinely loved the ring!

This made me want to delve a bit more into handmade rings for men, since I always have such a hard time making something for my dad and brothers. So look for some more “man rings” soon!

Filed under Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comment (0)