The lockdown has affected all of us in so many ways. Some found it unbearable, others discovered new ways of working and being. Many artists and craftspeople made creative leaps in their work, often driven by interruptions in the supply chains. And some found inspiration in the very essence of the lockdown. Here is a story by JeDeCo member Rosemary Lucas, who has created a mini lockdown collection of pendants. Narrated in person..

"During the first Lockdown, in 2020, I had the idea of creating pendants with gemstones somehow confined in their frames. They’d be in different configurations, like we all were at the time - in a couple maybe, or a bubble, perhaps a family, alone perhaps - surviving within their four walls.  I raided my boxes for beads and played around with how they could sit alongside each other inside a frame. The frames would need to fit each stone group, with just enough space around it. I would use long ‘rivets’, suspended like beams, to hold them in there. Various colour combinations, shapes and placings were beginning to tell their own stories…… 

Look at this solid Amazonite block [1], is it protecting the Olive Jade cube that’s crammed in next to it, barely able to move in the frame? 

Or the smooth Aquamarine, with that sharp-edged Prehnite rhombus [2]. How do they get on, suspended on separate silver rivets in their spacious frame, just touching?

What happened so there’s an empty silver rivet above this little trio of black Onyx discs [3], tucked in with a Tourmalinated Quartz square, silver block and tiny frosted glass bead?

And when this Amber nugget moves in its tiny copper frame [4], how do the others manage, the two little Onyx discs and the Tourmalinated Quartz square?

Who is this other, solitary Aquamarine [5], a nugget of bright light rotating in its mysterious tiny dark frame? 

Who knows?! Maybe people will have their own personal Lockdown Stories that could be captured and framed? 

Each one has had its own technical challenges of course: why make life easy for myself? But I love finding ways to construct frames for each of the relationships I come up with in stones. Each one has a different character depending on the silver ‘wire’ I choose and I’m always experimenting with alternative ways of riveting the stone beads into them. Every pendant has its own style of chain and method for hanging too, so no Lockdown Story will ever be the same as another."

Inspired? Browse Rosemary's collection for the Lockdown stories and more..