Dreams of Atlantis

Home planet. We close our eyes and feel a yearning for a utopia, a certain missing of a place we’ve never been to, that undefined pining the germans call ‘ sehnsuct ‘- a place glimpsed in our collective unconscious when we dream. I wanted to evoke this feeling for the Dreams of Atlantis collection, that half-remembered vision of home, so hazy but oh, so familiar. It presented itself to me as a ringed planet and her moon, and it’s been coalesced into a physical object in this soft reverie in shell-pastel, fluorite and labradorite, gleaming with iridescence in purples whites and blues, part deep sky, part deep sea.

I created the original sculpture for the winged seahorse in Z-Brush, a 3-D program. For more of my sculpt-work check out the ‘Sculptural and Metalwork’ section of this Museum.

Every collection has a signature piece and this would be it for this one - the image of the snaking golden path, no doubt inspired by a great source of inspiration of mine, Dune, as well as the Pyramid under a constellation and the keyhole doorway first appeared here in this design - but would go onto fill pages of my sketchbooks, and be interpreted several times in my work in a kind of archetype I called ‘The Only Path’

I created the original sculpture for the winged seahorse in Z-Brush, a 3-D program. For more of my sculpt-work check out the ‘Sculptural and Metalwork’ section of this Museum.

This is my winged guardians necklace, with flying-seahorse castings flanking a gorgeous drop of labradorite with great dark ocean flash. When making this piece for Dreams of Atlantis, I had portals on the mind - a doorway which the seahorses, kind of like sea-angels, are guarding. I wanted to create a ceremonial-looking statement necklace that would seem at home upon the collarbones of an ancient priestess - or, once unearthed by archaeologists, holding it baffled to the sunlight for the first time in millennia - would glow with powerful hidden magic still.

Every collection has a signature piece and this would be it for this one - the image of the snaking golden path, no doubt inspired by a great source of inspiration of mine, Dune, as well as the Pyramid under a constellation and the keyhole doorway first appeared here in this design - but would go onto fill pages of my sketchbooks, and be interpreted several times in my work in a kind of archetype I called ‘The Only Path’

.. a certain sense of juxtaposed imagery (harder to express in vitreous enamel, incidentally, than in photoshop or even painting) as one might see in a trance, was just what I was trying to achieve when I created the focal for this cuff. Dolphins in the foreground sluice through deep-sea currents, and behind, between, in that dimensional way psychedelics have, we glimpse for a moment a glistening city bathed in impossible sunset light - the peaks of pyramids and temple silhouettes, and a huge alien sky.⁣

When I worked on this collection, I was at a stage where I would try to create a small range of accessible pieces - both price-wise, as well as size-wise - for daintier budgets and personalities. These portal rings were a cute gateway drug to the BMMBX wonderland.

Split ring featured the alien head casting from my original sculpt, as well as a fabricated moon set with a carved mother-of-pearl. For more about my sculpture work, check out the Museum room ‘Metalwork and Sculptural)