White Gold Mayan Temple Memoriam Ring

I spent my early twenties as an archaeologist digging up everything from hunting knives and pottery to the remnants of housing structures. After that, I moved on to a corporate job that was cushy but not fulfilling. After seven years, I left my cushy corporate job to devote my life to creating and learning about jewelry. Last month, a project came in to Custom jewelry that reminded me why I took that leap of faith.

During my archaeological tenure, I saw firsthand the important roles objects play in our daily lives. Knives to hunt and chop with. Pottery to store and cook. Housing to shelter us and keep the fire going. Even in our most primitive states, our lives were filled with practical objects made for practical reasons. When I dug up my first small pile of necklace beads, I pondered their utter impracticality. They didn’t provide food, warmth, or shelter, and they weren’t created to protect us from the elements. They were absolutely insignificant in a practical world. Yet we still made them, wore them, and passed them down from generation to generation.

It was in that moment I realized how deeply significant adornments are. While they may serve little practical purpose in our daily lives, each piece can be incredibly meaningful and very personal, helping to create our individual human narratives. Jewelry reminds us where we come from, who we are, and who we want to be. We share it to profess our love or commemorate life-changing events. And the most significant pieces we pass down between generations or wear daily to remind us who we are and, in a lot of cases, who we’ve loved.