Abstract Heirloom Wedding Ring

July 2025
14 karat gold

A friend of mine asked me to create a wedding ring for her fiancé based on a painting he had done soon after he decided to propose to her (but before he had actually proposed). She sent me a copy of the painting (see last image), and at first I had no idea what to do with it—it was compelling, but had no really linear sections that would work around the band of a ring!

After sitting with it for a while, I decided to deconstruct the elements of the painting to create building blocks. I knew that the floral element was important to both of them, and I was particularly struck by the center of the top left circle element—I saw right away how this cubist flower would look in bas relief versus on canvas. As I built up a library of 3D versions of the various motifs of the painting, I started to feel like I understood the painter a little better—and that's when it hit me.

Since the couple lives here in Hawai‘i, I decided to rearrange the elements of the painting in the mode of a Hawaiian Heirloom pattern. To my delight, the polyp-like elements of the outer circles became the still-furled pinnae on the petiole of a hāpu‘u fern's crosier, and everything filled in from there. I substituted his leaves for the traditional maile, placed the diamond from the painting opposite the central flower, and filled in with other smaller elements to emulate the feel of his brush.

360º shaky-cam video view at the end!