A Leaf, a Tank, and a Tree
Three things I love, none of them related to each other, until suddenly they became.
I keep a couple of small tanks at home, tiny ecosystems, mostly because I like watching something small and self- contained do its own thing. I still don't actually know what's living in the current one — something millimeter-sized, probably a few different kinds. I'll figure that out properly once there's enough of them to spare a few for the microscope.
One of the things I feed them are linden tree leaves, cut from branches off my bonsai. I've been keeping that tree alive and shaping it for two years now, and the branches I have cut are ones that had to go anyway. I wasn't thinking about earrings when I put them in. I was just feeding the tank.
A few weeks later I pulled a leaf out and the soft part was gone. Just the skeleton left — this pale, veined lattice, still holding its own shape with nothing soft left to hold. That wasn't an accident, exactly. It's just what happens in a tank like this. What was my choice was deciding it was worth keeping, and worth putting into the work I actually make things with.
That's the part I keep sitting with. Trees I've kept alive for years. A tank I keep for no better reason than liking tiny ecosystems. And a brand that's supposed to be about noticing small things and connecting them into something bigger. All three of those met in one leaf, completely by coincidence, and I decided not to let that be just a nice story I tell once and move on from.
I think this is just how my brain works, honestly. I don't experience a bonsai, a fish tank, and a jewelry brand as three separate parts of my life that happen to coexist. Something in me is always looking for the thread between things that aren't supposed to have one. That's not always convenient — it means I rarely finish one thing before three more ideas show up wanting to be connected to it too. But every so often it hands me something like this: one leaf, three completely unrelated obsessions, and no line I had to force.
There's a fair amount of fussy work between a dried leaf skeleton and something I can actually use — sorting through dozens of tiny punched circles, keeping the clean full ones and setting the rest aside for a different story, captured in earrings. It's slow, it takes more patience than skill, mostly, and it still gets under my skin a little every time. But I like that part, honestly, in the way you like a task that demands your full attention and actually gives something back for it. Nom Nom Dopamine.
The finished circles are going onto a white background with blue shimmer almost opal looking, held down with an acrylic binder that's actually made for fixing pigment, not leaf skeletons. It works anyway. The natural bone-grey of the leaf sits on top of the white in a way I couldn't have painted that well myself, I have outlined the circles by hand with white, and the end result is just stunning.
And here is a little peak on next fall set, using the left overs. Here the shine isn't visible just jet, because the last glossy coating of varnish isn't dry. So stay tuned and follow the studio if u don't already ;)
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*Handmade in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Small numbered series, shipped across the EU.*