Bluets

March 27, 2025

Inspired by Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, for Claudia.

Last night I wept in a way I haven’t wept for some time. I wept until I aged myself. I watched it happen in the mirror. I watched the lines arrive around my eyes like engraved sunbursts; it was like watching flowers open in time-lapse on a windowsill. the tears not only aged my face, they also changed its texture, turned the skin of my cheeks into putty. I recognized this was a rite of decadence, but I did not know how to stop it. - Excerpt from Bluets

Source https://drunkenlibrary.com/2022/01/12/excerpt-from-bluets-maggie-nelson/

The ring reflects the idea of hope, of breaking down and building up again. Of finding strength in one’s weaknesses and of rediscovering the meaning of what “blue” means. Through her pains, she slowly shifted and transformed her into something that is inherently, essentially, and surely herself - beyond external perceptions or the assigned meaning of “who you are” and what you are ‘supposed’ to be, beyond an object of someone’s longing. The process of having learned to be light and light for oneself.

I wanted this ring to encapsulate the flowiness of tears, but also the turbulent nature of a breakdown - as in going in all directions. It was meant to represent how the outcome of the wearer's grief has lead to her finding herself (the ebbs and flows of all that she experienced, have been moulded around her shape - like the ring wrapping around her finger)

Hidden forms include:

Bluet flower (front) - but the flower form fades into the flow “the blue things I treasure are gifts or surprises”
Engraved starburst (back of ring) - contrasting texture from the flowy front, representing the idea of duality.