”Michael is probably one of the most intelligent and cool people I know,” Sarah told me. ”I love that he's so passionate about everything film and role-playing - basically everything about systems, magic and world-building. He seems like his brain is a HUGE library of knowledge - it's so crazy! He makes everything easy to understand, no matter how complicated it is and he's patient with people. ”
”I fell in love most of all with his inclusiveness, but also that he is at peace with himself. That he is balanced between his empathy and understanding, but that he doesn't lose his identity and strong personality. That makes me both love and respect him a lot.” According to the character descriptions in the Dungeons & Dragons system - the iconic and best-known role-playing game system of our time - dwarves are determined and loyal, true to their word and extremely resourceful, bordering on stubbornness. Probably because many dwarves have a strong sense of justice.
Michael's ring before it was oxidised
According to Sarah, the love of her life contains many of these classic dwarf qualities and so she asked me to create a rough silver ring with a textured surface reminiscent of the bark of an old oak tree or rough rocks, heavily inspired by the dwarf universe in Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings. The ring was oxidised dark grey - an ephemeral state because the dark colour quickly lightens as the surface treatment wears away.
Who is Sarah
Who is the shamelessly nerdy young woman who fell in love with a real dwarf (of perfectly average human height)? Sarah is a painter. Her stage name is GALAXARA - and she creates the most mesmerising artwork, often featuring graceful swirling lines inspired by the giant galaxies of space. Her favourite medium is watercolour and gouache, but she also creates stunning murals and is extremely adept at developing her art with Photoshop. She is also a master of theatre and film make-up, especially when she puts her airbrush to use! If you want to see some of her artwork, you can follow her at Facebook or Patreon, which also gives you the opportunity to support this talented young artist, should you feel like it.
By the way, you can get a little bit of Glaxaras art when you buy a piece of dragon jewellery from me. It comes with a mini-book with a story about a dragon. There are two versions: one created for children (written by the young author Stine Bahrt) and one written for adults by yours truly. Both books have covers illustrated by Galaxara. Read the two stories here:
Of course Michael said yes when Sarah asked him to marry her on her birthday, so I had the pleasure of both their company in my jewellery shop when I designed her ring. She wanted this ring to be inspired by her beloved galaxies and with stones in her favourite colours: purple and blue. So I designed a ring centred around an oval purple sapphire and surrounded asymmetrically by bubbles, some of which were set with dark blue sapphires. The ring was based on the popular Embrace design and the two rings would be bound together by the same very rough surface - even on the setting of the centre stone!
The result was a set of wedding rings that in many ways broke with convention and therefore have as much personality as their wearers!
A little about black jewellery
There is no metal that is completely black. However, most metals can be treated with a black or dark grey surface that is more or less durable. The word “durable” is important here because jewellery and especially finger rings, which are worn daily, are subject to a lot of wear and tear. This means that the relatively thin layer of coating will always wear off, exposing the original metal. The least durable treatment is oxidisation on silver. On a ring, it will start to change within a few days and more or less disappear within a few weeks. However, areas that are deep and thus not exposed to mechanical wear will retain the dark colour - such as between the beads and setting in Sarah's ring.
One of the most durable treatments is black (actually dark grey) rhodium, which can last between six months to a year, depending on what you do with your hands. A rhodium layer is applied to the jewellery via an electrolytic process and is only a few MY thick, making it as durable (or weak) as gold plating. However, both treatments can be repeated at your jeweller.
You CAN get jewellery in black materials such as tantalum or carbon fibre, but neither of these can be shaped using traditional goldsmithing techniques (so you can't get a ring custom-designed from this material) and this also means that the size cannot be changed. Many of us would love to own a piece of jewellery that is completely black, so the search continues for a material that can be shaped (and reshaped) like precious metals AND is completely black. Unfortunately, so far without success.
Blog categories
