Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Brighton Rock

Off to Brighton on Friday for the festive holidays! Today I had hardly any students in, had finished the charms for the SCC show and have nothing that I can really be doing on my two big projects ("Fashion:Victim" and "Future Legend") so I picked up a nut from the old West Pier in Brighton, a beautiful Victorian pier which had a theatre at the end and which has been allowed to fall into disrepair following an arson attack by a company which didn't want it to be restored:

Brighton West Pier at Low Tide


The nut was found on the sand under the pier at very low tide once and is heavily corroded, like the rest of the structure:

Remains of the West Pier


I made the nut into a ring, set with black onyx on the top and a haematite behind. The shank is made from a piece of steel found on a different beach and not from Brighton:

Brighton Rock - Ring - 1


Brighton Rock - Ring - 2


Brighton Rock - Ring - 4


A friend of mine who used to live in Brighton pointed out that it is a kind of "mourning ring" for the pier. I like to think that Pinkie, the amoral gangster anti-hero from Graham Greene's novel, "Brighton Rock", might wear it with his sharp suit. One of my favourite books.