Vena Amoris – Inspiration Behind the Pieces
Pictured: The Light Ring by Julia Storey, Kafka On The Shore Ring by Tessa Blazey, and the Song of Love Ring by Jeanette Dyke
Drawing inspiration from the written word, each artist has responded to a chosen text that has left a lasting impression on their experience of love. Discover each artist’s choice of text.
The text is the seed. The ring is the response.
Julia Storey – “The room, the light, I waited all night”
From the song Waited All Night by Jamie XX
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Tessa Blazey – “Anyone who falls in love is looking for the missing pieces of themselves”
From the novel Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2002)
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Lauren Trojkovic – “Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one”
A quote from the romantic poet, John Keats
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Jeanette Dyke – “The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.”
An excerpt from W. B. Yeats’ poem The Song of Wandering Aengus, where protagonist Aengus spends his life wandering in search of a beautiful girl.
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Susan Ewington – “Take care of the blood that your love runs through”
From the song Tourniquet by Zach Bryan
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Alexandra Dodds – “We were as one”
From Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids (2010)
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Alicia Hannah Naomi – “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”
From Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan (1994)
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Amy Renshaw – “‘I am thinking it’s a sign,
That the freckles in our eyes, Are mirror images, And when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned’
From the song Such Great Heights by The Postal Service
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Krista McRae – “The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body pursues its own ideas—for my body does not have the same ideas as I do.”
From The Pleasure of the Text (Le Plaisir du Texte) by Roland Barthes (1973)
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Welfe Bowyer – “I’ve been accused, but I’ve only begun”
From the song Awake by Black Motorcycle Club. Written by Peter Hayes, Welfe had this line painted on his jeans as a teenager.
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Cass Partington
Inspiring the shape of the ring is Raymond Carver’s final poem, Late Fragment, published in his collection A New Path to the Waterfall, and the engraved surfaces were inspired by Kevin Brophy’s collection of poetry This Is What Gives Us Time (2016)
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Phoebe Porter – “My dress is made of water and invisible feathers dipped in moonlight.”
From Lehua M. Taitano’s poem When The World Falls in Around You or, Vows to My Palestinian Wife on Our Wedding Day (2024)
