The Object º Issue Nº 01
Behind the design: The Rice Chain Story
Notes on the rice chain. Where the shape came from, and why we left it open.
The rice chain started with a shape we had been turning over for a while, one familiar for many of us from other diasporas. We were not setting out to make rice, we were trying to land a bead that sat somewhere between a ball and a pearl, with enough length to read as a considered choice - but the subconscious works differently (and wonderfully).
The chain is cast in recycled 925 sterling silver, with the proportions of a long-grain seed, and finished by hand. The polish is bright but stops short of mirrored, so the silver carries warmth off the body instead of reflecting it back as light, and over time it begins to dull in some places and brighten in others, in the spots that see the most contact.
How the bead arrived.
A standard ball chain is round, and so it does the work of being a chain without asking much of whoever is wearing it. The rice bead sits differently, because it has an axis. It lies along the length of the chain rather than spinning freely around it, which means when the chain is worn at the throat, the beads tend to follow the natural line of the collarbone rather than crossing against it. The chain reads closer to a soft line than to a piece of hardware, which was the part we were trying to get to.
The seam where the two halves of each bead are joined is barely visible if you look for it, and almost invisible if you do not. Over months of wearing, the chain develops a surface that is not exactly worn and not exactly new, and that surface is the part of silver we like the most.
The shape arrived in sketches before we knew it was rice.
Why we named it for rice.
Rice was at the centre of the table I grew up around, and not only at meals. It was on the counter in a sealed plastic bin from the Asian grocer, in a small bowl beside the cooker waiting to be rinsed, in the wide bowl my mother carried through with both hands when the rest of the food was already on the table. None of which is the kind of detail that translates straight into copy, but it is the reason the chain has the name that it does, and we did not want to make the name carry more weight than the bowl itself does.
We talk a lot about pieces that take on meaning through wearing them rather than arriving with the meaning already attached. The chain comes blank. What gets added to it over time happens through ordinary days at the throat, and that is the part of jewellery we cannot design for, and probably the part that matters the most.
º Construction. Cast bead by bead in recycled 925 sterling silver and assembled in our small workshop. A sterling extension at the clasp gives a few centimetres of adjustability, so the chain can sit higher or lower depending on what you wear under it. A small Graedance insignia at the closure, polished smooth so it does not catch on cloth.
º Two waysWorn alone, or with the Astra pendants.
The bail at the centre of the chain is shaped to take a pendant cleanly without fighting the closure, and it pairs in particular with the Astra pendants from our Cosmos drop, in amethyst for dusk and citrine for dawn. The chain is also complete on its own, as a quiet line at the throat with nothing else asked of it. We wore both versions for months between us in the studio and could not settle on a favourite, which is how we knew the answer was to leave the choice open.
Bead º Long-grain form, hand finished.
Closure º Lobster clasp with sterling extension chain.
Origin º Designed in Naarm. Carbon-neutral make.
Designed with consideration of your changing body and mood. Embrace the grey area you occupy.
