Creating memorial jewellery for loved ones who have passed
Aurora Simmons
Throughout my career I have been honoured many times to work with people on their memorial projects. Jewellery has been a venue for honouring the memory of the deceased for centuries, sometimes the hair of the deceased was braided into an adornment or set behind glass. Putting an image of a loved one in a locket or the ashes of a loved on in a wearable vessel also has a long history.
Memorializing a loved one in jewellery can take many forms. I have worked with the ashes of the deceased, and made a vessel to hold them that could be worn as a pendant.
I have set scraps of hair under a gem in a ring that is worn next to the skin.
I have worked with diamonds made from the ashes of the deceased. (There are a number of companies that offer this service for both pet and human cremains.)
I have also made pieces with items that signified a connection to the dead but didn’t include any remains.
When we lose someone we love, having something of them that we can wear on our bodies is a way to keep them close and honour their memory. Even though it can be a reminder of the pain of losing them, it is also a comfort to have something of them near to us that can travel around wherever we go.
When my clients come to me looking for a memorial piece, I aim to engage with the resonance of their grief and their love to create something that will be with them always.
Below are some examples of pieces I have made and a little about the death and the life that was being memorialized. If you have lost someone and need a way to keep their spirit close, I hope this will give you some ideas of the many possibilities.
The following does include descriptions of specific losses so please read with care.
This piece was a really magical memorial pendant. My clients father passed away after a long illness. The night he died, her cat brought her this large piece of black moonstone from her alter. She got the news of his passing later that night. Given the significance of the timing, she wanted to have the stone made into something that could be worn.
Her father had been a priest, deeply loved by his congregation and I wanted to bring something into the piece that would honour his work. I chose the motif of the rose window. An elaborate stained glass window style that often adorns large cathedrals.
The stone was quite large, so it posed a unique challenge in construction. After I made the pierce-work frame I had to re-envision my initial plan for setting the stone. Ultimately I sewed the gem into the frame with silk thread. This worked well for my client who is a costume historian and created something special to honour her fathers memory. If you would like to learn more about the construction process I have a making-of video here.
When my client married his wife, in 2019 I made their wedding rings. Later that year she fell ill with cancer. With treatment and perseverance she was able to go into remission for a time but in 2024 it was found to have spread. She passed away at the end of 2024. It was her and her partners wish to have her cremains made into a diamond that I could set into his wedding band. You can see the beautiful yellow diamond that was created from her ashes. I made a setting for it and attached it to his wedding ring. This beautiful little piece of her will be with him forever in his wedding ring.
This was an especially heart wrenching piece. My client’s baby was stillborn, 6 weeks from term. The heartbreak of losing an infant is unfathomable and it meant so much to me to be able to craft this ring for her. The setting was 10 karat gold, set with a created Gilson opal cabochon that reminded her of her child. Underneath the stone I set a scrap of babies hair, protected by a glass backing so that it would always be close to her.
This pendant was created for a woman who had lost her husband. The year before he died, he ordered a pendant from me as a gift for her which was a rose quartz sphere set in a silver frame.
After he passed away, she wanted me to make something that would evoke that original rose quartz pendant, but would be able to contain some of his ashes. The motifs she chose were historical symbols, one that had been important to him, and one that was especially resonant for her. I carved the sphere in two halves and cast it in sterling silver to create a hollow vessel. Then I added a mouth and placed some of the ashes inside and capped it with a silver cap. The piece had deep meaning for her in terms of the symbolic significance, but it also was able to hold some of his remains so that he could be with her whenever she wore the piece.
On a personal note, in early 2023 my beloved cat Iris passed away. She had been with me for 13 years, and had been through so much with me. In many ways she had become my emotional rock and losing her was intensely difficult for me. I wanted to make a ring that would symbolize my connection to her. She was an all black cat and had loved to hang out in our back garden, like a little jungle cat. I had saved her whiskers over the years, so I took one and coiled it up and set it behind a rose cut onyx, symbolizing her sleek black fur and set in a leaf motif for how much she loved the garden. I wear this ring frequently and it gives me great comfort to have a little part of her with me.
There is no correct way to grieve, nor only one way to honour a loved one, but creating something wearable can be greatly comforting when you are missing them and can be a beautiful way to keep them with you. Having the chance to help people realize these pieces is a great honour for me and is a task that I deeply value. If this is something you are thinking about, please feel free to email me to set up a meeting and we can talk about possibilities. info@handmaderevolution.org
