Launched at Manchester Design and Craft Centre in 2004 “Ring” was based on the concept of giving each participating member of Manchester Jewellers Network the same 10mm silver ring. The challenge was set to return some weeks later having altered and incorporated the metal into a piece of Jewellery of their choice. Rowena’s creation entitled “Ode to My Unborn Sibling” carefully constructed the ring into a box containing a beautiful brooch. The exhibition has since toured internationally before returning to these shores.

Ode to My Unborn Sibling

“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.”

The Bible: Psalm 139: verse 13-16

This piece of work is dedicated to my unborn sibling. Although we never knew each other I have always yearned for their company and wondered what sort of person they would have become. Despite this I give thanks for their short life. Wombs are sacred spaces and exist as a ring of love and protection around the unborn child. No matter how long we are carried for in that sacred world we are surrounded by love and life … and surely that is something to be celebrated.

The box represents that “secret place.” Inside its womb is a brooch that represents my family tree. The irregular shaped fire agate tree represents my unborn sibling and can be spied through the hole in the closed box as an embryo attached by an umbilical cord to the walls of the womb. The original ring forms the hole in the lid of the box.

“Ode to My Unborn Sibling” ROWENA GOLTON July 2004