Jewelry and Flowers: what do they say on Valentine’s Day?
One of my favorite books is The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbach. The main character, Victoria uses the meaning of flowers to express her feelings. The Victorian era language of flowers was used to communicate symbolic meaning to the recipient: tulip for vanity, honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love (as a few examples). In the novel, conversation with flowers was an excellent device to follow the twists and turns of Victoria’s story.
Jewelry also has a rich history of meaning to communicate love, status, healing and spirituality. Suggestions to express love to others and ourselves is all around us in the modern celebration of Valentines Day. Like flowers, gemstones have a long history of meanings as well. For example aquamarine is thought to symbolize happiness and youth, pearls are tokens of wisdom, diamonds regarded as a love bearing stone and opals express passion.
This Valentines Day I am thinking about the Fordite collection as a nontraditional way to communicate love. This upcycled material created from car paint overspray does not have an established meaning as other gemstones do. The cheerful, colorful ip-cycled material seems like a great way to express the desire for a happy and sustainable life of harmony with layers that represent our memories. For Valentine’s Day it makes me think of a jewelry version of the traditional handmade card. What do you think?
What the world needs now is love sweet love
-Burt Bacharach
