Materials
Brass & Copper Sheet Metal, Stainless Steel & Copper Wire, Pearls, Gemstone Beads, Resin
Technique
Cold Connections, Metalworking, Precision Piercing, Soldering, Chemical Patination, Wire Wrapping, UV Resin
Year
2026
Tags
Overview
For my final project in Introduction to Jewelry, I created a brooch with narrative and symbolic meaning — accumulating every technique from the semester. Blood & Tears is an eye that cries blood: a monument to the specific agony of watching someone you loved move on.
Full Story
01 — Design Brief — the beginning of Blood & Tears
02 — Inspiration — the specific grief of watching someone move on
03 — Sketches — different iterations of the same vivid vision
04 — Process & Materials — fabrication techniques used
05 — Progress — step by step, precision piercing to UV resin
06 — Final Product — Blood & Tears worn in the wild
Concept
These tears are meant to symbolize a different kind of cry. This cry is of agony and pain over the loss of someone you were passionate about or desired. For me personally, I spent years crying over someone that I was in love with. While I'm okay now, I still feel that deep grief and remember all the suffering I had to endure while I saw them move on with their life with someone else. The color palette — blood red, amber gold, cream, and black — was pulled directly from that emotional weight. Pearls and ruby-red beads form the tears. The eye watches. It always watches.
Process
Because I had such a clear and vivid vision for this brooch, I wanted to simply create different iterations of the same concept — adjusting the number of eyelashes, the type of chains, the assortment of beads. Fabrication techniques included: Cold Connections (resin, wire-wrapping), Metalworking (precision piercing, doming, finishing), Soldering & Mechanisms (integrated hand-crafted hinge and catch), Surface Treatment (chemical & heat patination in red and black on copper), and Wire Working (custom structural eyelash fabrication). Materials: Brass and Copper sheet metal, Stainless steel and copper wire, Pearls and gemstone beads, Resin.
Final
The completed piece is a wearable narrative — an eye brooch with custom wire eyelashes, blood-red bead tears, and a UV-resin-sealed iris. The hinge and catch mechanism were hand-fabricated, allowing the piece to function as a proper, wearable brooch. Completed as my final project for Introduction to Jewelry at SCAD, 2026.