Kristine Bolhuis & Christina Röhlen Exchange

Kristine Bolhuis – Holland

The foliage of Spring was blooming all around us. Gardens were on our minds. We agreed that we would try to capture our natural surroundings and send a bit of it to one another in the form of our jewelry piece. I looked toward the gardens that surround my home for inspiration, finding it in the Hawthorn tree that opens like an umbrella over our patio. Our patio is like an extension of our home in summer. We spend a great deal of time relaxing and eating meals outdoors. This Hawthorn is a bit of my summer home life to send to Christina.

The neckpiece is a drawing of the tree. It is abstracted by the geometric forms, but still maintains some hint of a tree shape. The drops are like the little berries that fall from the tree in autumn. The pieces articulate, so it will move as Christina moves, mimicking the movement of the tree in the breeze. 

Christina Röhlen – Germany

Flowers for you.

During my first chat with Kristine, I decided that the piece I made for her had to be made from material found in nature. As it turned out, we were both inspired to make jewelry for each other based on our natural surroundings.

For me, it was a little bit like a new starting point, searching for another material. There are a lot of different flowers in our garden. Lavender is my favorite. The smell of it during the summer is wonderful, and its bush is alive with the noise of bees. I did a brooch for Kristine with lavender Jasper, wood from a nut-tree, Silver and Steel.

The silver-dots are my abstract bees.