Why Rings by NK Feels Like It Belongs to Another World

It has happened often enough now that I have started paying attention.

Someone will pick up one of my rings, look closely at the granulation or the architecture beneath the stone, and make a connection to Game of Thrones. Someone else sees something that feels vaguely Lord of the Rings. Others simply describe the jewellery as old-world, ancient, medieval or somehow belonging to another time.

I understand what they mean.

What is interesting is that I have never set out to make fantasy jewellery.

I am not recreating jewellery from a television series, designing replicas from films or deliberately trying to make something look medieval. Rings by NK is contemporary fine jewellery.

Yet there is clearly something in the work that makes people think of those worlds.

I have been wondering why.

We Recognize an Older Visual Language

The imagined worlds of Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings work partly because so much of their visual language comes from things that already exist.

Ancient objects, medieval buildings, stone fortifications, heraldry, engraved symbols, armour and metalwork all contribute to the feeling.

Just as importantly, their significant objects tend to have histories.

A sword has been carried before. A seal belongs to a family. A crown represents a lineage. Jewellery can identify a person, a house or a story.

There is very little about those worlds that feels disposable.

I think some of the same visual language appears naturally in my jewellery.

My rings are rarely designed simply as a band with a gemstone sitting on top. I tend to think about them architecturally.

The setting has structure. There are rails, openings, chambers and windows beneath stones. Areas that could easily have been left hidden are often deliberately designed.

One recurring detail is the Oculus, an opening beneath the stone that has gradually become part of the Rings by NK design language.

Functionally, it allows access and light beneath the gemstone.

Visually, it does something more.

It makes the setting feel architectural, almost as though you are looking through a very small window in a structure.

Often these details are barely visible when the ring is being worn.

You have to look closer.

And Then There Is Granulation

Granulation is probably the strongest connection.

It has become one of the defining techniques of Rings by NK: tiny individual spheres of gold arranged and fused onto the surface to form lines, borders, geometric patterns and texture.

To a modern eye it can feel unusual.

But there is nothing modern about the technique.

Granulation appeared in the ancient world thousands of years ago. Examples are known from Mesopotamia from around 2500 BC, with the technique later appearing across Egypt, Greece and Italy. The Etruscans became particularly accomplished at it, producing extraordinarily fine gold jewellery using individual granules arranged into complex patterns.

Ancient pieces survive with granules forming triangles, rows, clusters and geometric arrangements.

Thousands of years later, I find myself using many of the same basic elements.

Not because I am attempting to reproduce Etruscan jewellery.

The rings are contemporary objects and the architecture is my own.

But the technique itself carries a history.

Perhaps that is part of the reason a newly made ring can still feel as though it belongs to a much older world.

Handmade Gold Jewellery, Built Rather Than Simply Styled

There is another part of the work that I think contributes to the feeling.

Every Rings by NK piece is handmade.

The rings are constructed from individual components of gold. Elements are formed, fitted and assembled. Lines are engraved by hand. Granules are individually made, positioned and fused. Settings are built around the proportions of individual gemstones rather than simply accepting a standard component.

The objective is precision.

I want the finished ring to look resolved, refined and exact.

But there is something different about an object that has physically been constructed this way.

A hand-engraved line has actually been cut into the gold.

Granulation is not a texture impressed onto the surface. Every individual sphere is physically present.

The Oculus is not an applied decorative motif. It is part of the structure of the setting itself.

When you turn one of the rings over, there is still something to look at.

For me, the underside of a ring should not simply be the place where the design stops.

That approach has more in common with older traditions of goldsmithing, where structure, decoration and making were often closely connected.

Why Certain Objects Seem to Carry a Story

This is probably where the connection to old kingdoms, dragons, fantasy worlds and ancient objects becomes most interesting.

A dragon is rarely just an animal used as decoration.

Across different cultures and traditions it can represent power, protection, ancestry, danger, authority or lineage.

The meaning depends on the person and the story attached to it.

The same is true of other objects.

A sword can belong to someone before you.

A crown can represent a lineage.

A seal can identify a family.

A ring can carry exactly the same kind of meaning.

That idea sits very comfortably with the way I think about jewellery.

The gemstone can be extraordinary, and sometimes it is the first thing you see.

But I still want the ring itself to stand on its own.

Before the stone is added, the structure, proportions, engraving and granulation should already create an object worth looking at.

The stone becomes part of the story rather than the entire story.

Modern Jewellery With an Older Memory

This is also why I keep returning to the idea of the heirloom.

An heirloom does not have to follow one conventional route from parent to child.

It simply means an object has enough permanence and meaning to continue beyond its first owner.

It may eventually belong to a son or daughter, a niece or nephew, another relative, a friend, or someone the original owner may never meet.

The important part is that somebody wants to keep it.

That changes the way I think about designing jewellery.

A ring may be made for one person today, but ideally its story does not end with that person.

That is what separates the idea of an heirloom from simply making something expensive.

The value is not only in what it cost.

It is in what the object comes to mean.

You Are Part of a Longer Story

One of the ideas behind Rings by NK is:

You Are Part of a Longer Story.

The longer I make jewellery, the more literal that idea becomes.

Granulation connects the work to goldsmiths who were using the same fundamental technique thousands of years ago.

Architecture gives me another language to work with: structure, openings, repetition, proportion, light and shadow.

Then there is the person who eventually wears the ring and whatever meaning they bring to it.

That is where the next part of its story begins.

So when somebody tells me one of my rings feels as though it belongs in Game of Thrones, or that it has something ancient or medieval about it, I no longer find the comparison particularly surprising.

I am not trying to make jewellery from an imaginary past.

I am using ancient goldsmithing techniques, architectural forms and traditional hand skills to make something contemporary.

Perhaps that is why the work can feel familiar even when the design itself is new.

The jewellery is modern.

But some of the ideas behind it are very old.

Look closer.