If you are an artist, inspiration can be found everywhere you turn. I designed these 18k rose gold weddings rings for pastry chefs, well known in Brooklyn (Dumbo and Cobble Hill) for their incredible cookies. Their store is One Girl Cookies.

One of them, I won’t say which, lost their ring in a batch of butter and flour and I had to make another, but no matter, that’s the benefit of knowing the designer!

The pattern of their rings was inspired by an exhibition of Australian aboriginal art at Christie’s in New York many years ago.

The paintings reminded me of everything in the natural world…

The wind, the surf and the dunes at the seashore.

The mountain mesas in the Southwest where I grew up.

The rolling hills of Tuscany, and the farmlands spread out across the United States that tie our cities together.

Rivers that twist and wind their way to ocean shores and deltas and bays to the East and West and South.

The red clay hills of Northern New Mexico.

Crop circles.

Hidden horse thief meadows high in the Sandia Mountains.

Lakes and oceans and sea tides.

The Sun.

The Moon.

The Stars.

Designing wedding rings is one of the greatest honors and pleasures of my creative life. It is a collaboration and therefore a lot of trust is invoked. Not unlike a relationship between lovers themselves. If you have that trust, much beauty can emerge from it.

Yet, underneath it all, there is the original inspiration. I remember the day I walked into Christie’s galleries to see those stunningly beautiful aboriginal paintings, many of them by elderly artists who had begun their careers late in their lives, hanging on walls of white, the whorls and whirls and circles and lines and patterns of the paintings blending into one another and becoming etched forever into my brain.

I went home and designed these Whorl Wedding rings and they make me happy.

I love being reminded about the past about artistry, about the birthplace of personal creative inspiration, and this morning I woke up to an article in the Times about an aboriginal artist named Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, whose work is currently featured in an exhibition at Salon 54.

I wish that I could have included not only a photographic link to the article, alongside of which I would have shown my rings, which would not now exist had I not been wowed, inspired, humbled and compelled by the artistry of men and women who live in a country I long to visit, whose painterly expressions are unlike any other that I am aware of around the world.

I had to debate which to include as a photograph – my rings or the article – the rings won (forgive me!) but below is the link about Mr. Tiapaltjarri’s work for those of you who would like to see his splendid work.

I want to sit with Mr. Tiapaltjarri under the Australian stars and contemplate being alive. If you know him, kindly pass that message along.

An Aborginal Artist’s Dizzying New York Moment:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/arts/design/an-aboriginal-artists-dizzying-new-york-moment.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

#WarlimpirrngaTjapaltjarri  #AboriginalArt