As a child in the ’70s, Pae White used to visit Sea Ranch, a utopian artists’ community tucked into the Pacific coast of Sonoma County. There, she spent her days digging through the gritty sand to collect whole crab shells and iridescent abalone fragments. The sense of exploration, wild beauty, and serendipity stuck with the artist as she grew up, and she has often incorporated shells into her vast installations and tapestries alongside other scavenged materials.
White was inspired to reengage with this visual vocabulary after noticing the door handle of Milan-based jewelry maison Vhernier, which was cast in bronze in the shape of a crab. Each of the jeweler’s hand-crafted pieces likewise pulls from the natural world, whether through embracing the inherent facets of its precious materials or evoking the organic curves of the body.
For their collection, White took the architecture of crustaceans and abalone but translated it into the new medium of precious stones. The result is a 10-design, limited-edition collection of Vhernier rings in shades of cerulean, violet, and bottle green. Gems like sapphires and diamonds are set into Vhernier’s signature white or rose gold and overlaid with rock crystal to create the illusion of restless light and color, like a mirage on the sea.
Only two versions of each design will be produced, lending a sense of rare discovery to each one. Softly faceted and glimmering, each ring is a little changeable and tempestuous, just like the open sea.
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