spiral sun earrings

Description

Spiral sun earrings

Spiral sun earrings, made from English grown box wood.

Earring sizes

The ear wires are hand made from 0.8mm sterling silver wire and tumble polished to give them extra hardness.

Each earring is hand cut and carefully hand sanded and finished with hardwearing food safe natural oils. Presented and a kraft card box.

These earrings come in 2 sizes the same price,  23mm approx diameter and  29mm approx diameter. The total length is 41mm and 47mm. The length is measured from the top bend of the ear wire to the bottom of the earring.

About Us

I am a designer and multi-skilled woodworker based in the UK, on the edge of the Dartmoor landscape. I take inspiration from our ancient ancestors and the natural world, and create beautiful, original work that combines traditional green woodwork and contemporary machine skills. I turn green wood on the pole lathe, a simple but effective technology that has been in use since over 4000 years past. Turned wooden ear-inserts have been found amongst archaeological remains at Dartmoor’s White Hill cist site.

My wife Lucy and I hold a deep love for the land and for heritage landscapes, often seeking to experience, identity and enjoy diverse botany and wildlife. We spend much of our time on Dartmoor’s hilltops and in wooded valleys, and in many other locations in the South-West of England, especially Dorset which is dotted with ancient cairns, hill forts and trackways, and astonishing coastlines.

We watch, and study in awe at all life, from the large to the minute, from the mighty trees in our midst to the microscopic mites that live on fungi and lichens. Once, our Staffordshire terrier unexpectedly rooted a wild boar out from a hidden hollow in an ancient woodland. We came within a few feet of it charging towards us, before it veered away. We have seen wild hares dance on hill forts, have found Stone Age tools in muddy ditches where we foraged for wild garlic or berries, picked up fossils on beaches from the earliest eras of life on Earth, and have watched herds of deer leap through bluebell-floored woodland that was first recorded in the Domesday Book.

As a woodsman, I cut my own timber when possible, and also gather interesting, fallen wood. The source of the wood that I use, is important. Sustainability is crucial, as is recycling old but interesting timber, and also, using wood that is discarded because it has ‘no value’. Some woods are selected because of the fungus that grows within it, creating beautiful patterns or colours. Non-native and exotic timbers are only used if they are recycled or second-hand. I want no part in the unsustainable and often nefarious international timber trade.

Each piece of wood has a story. The tree that grew, and where, and that it was home to many other life forms: mammal, bird, insect and all other fauna, mosses and fungi. How it came to be taken from its rich habitat, cut and processed; a story of life, death and decomposition as part of a greater cycle. Within my creative work, I draw on these stories in some small way, each item a microcosm whispering in the mighty shout of the cosmos.