MEMENTO MORI
Memorial & Mourning Jewellery
Jewellery for remembering. For carrying. For keeping close.
For centuries, jewellery has been used to hold our relationship with the dead. Lockets carried hair. Rings marked a death. Tiny inscriptions, portraits, symbols, bones and fragments became intimate objects of remembrance, worn against the body and passed from one generation to another. Memento Mori is our contemporary continuation of this tradition. We create deeply personal mourning jewellery and grieving talismans, made around the person, animal, memory or relationship you wish to carry with you.
THE ART OF MOURNING
Across cultures and throughout history, people have created jewellery, amulets and talismans to remember, honour and remain connected to the dead. These traditions, and the extraordinary visual language surrounding them, are a rich source of inspiration within our work.
Skulls and skeletons, bones, serpents, hearts, wings, flowers, inscriptions and other symbols of mortality and remembrance can become part of the design. Imagery may be created through engraving, carving, casting and other techniques, or drawn from objects and symbols that hold particular meaning for you.
Personal materials can also become part of the piece. Ashes may be incorporated or held within the jewellery, hair can be placed discreetly inside a locket or concealed compartment, teeth may become part of the design, and inherited gold and stones can be carried into its making.
Each Memento Mori commission draws from this long history of mourning and remembrance while becoming something entirely personal to the life, relationship or being it honours.
For our human and non human relatives alike.
HELD WITH CARE
Entrusting someone with ashes, hair, inherited jewellery or another deeply personal material is an intimate act.Sara Rothwell's practice sits at the meeting point of jewellery, grief, death and ritual. Alongside more than twenty years of jewellery making, Sara works within grief and death care and is currently undertaking a year-long death doula training, building upon previous training and courses in grief, death and person-centred end-of-life care.She is also an experienced facilitator and space holder, with a practice that has long explored remembrance, mortality, transformation and the ways we live alongside death.This means the conversation around your piece can have room for whatever accompanies it.You are never required to tell us more than you wish to. For those who do want to share, there is time to speak about the person or animal you are remembering, the materials you have brought and what you would like the piece to hold.The story is treated with the same care as the material.
WHAT CAN WE CREATE?
Each Memento Mori commission is entirely individual.
We might create a ring containing a tiny amount of ashes, a pendant holding a lock of hair, a talisman incorporating a tooth, an inherited stone reset into a new piece, or a piece made from gold that already carries family history.
Materials we may be able to work with include:
Ashes
Hair
Teeth
Inherited gold and jewellery
Existing diamonds and gemstones
Small personal or symbolic materials
We can also introduce newly sourced precious metals and gemstones where they belong within the design.
Every material is assessed individually before we begin, and we will talk you through what is possible and how it can be safely incorporated.
YOUR MEMENTO MORI
There is no single way a piece of mourning jewellery should look.It can carry the visual language of death openly, through bones, skulls, serpents, inscriptions and ancient symbols of mortality.It can also be extraordinarily quiet.A beautiful gold ring, pendant or talisman may hold ashes or another material without anyone else ever knowing they are there.We design around you, the person or animal you are remembering and the relationship you want to continue carrying.
THE MAKING
We begin with a private conversation.You may already know what you would like to create, or you may simply have ashes, a lock of hair, a piece of jewellery or something precious that you have been keeping safe.We can begin with that.From there, we explore the design, materials, stones and how any personal elements might be held within the piece.Once the design and quotation have been agreed, a 50% deposit begins the making process.Your materials are handled with great care throughout their time with us, and only the amount required for the agreed piece will be used.The finished jewellery is carefully prepared and presented in Sara Rothwell Jewellery packaging or a specially selected presentation box appropriate to the piece.
INHERITED GOLD
If the jewellery you are carrying holds a history of its own, we can also explore incorporating it into your Memento Mori commission.A wedding ring might become part of a pendant. Several family pieces might be melted together. A stone worn for decades can be released from its original setting and carried forward into something new.For commissions centred particularly around transforming inherited or sentimental gold, you may also wish to explore our Heirloom Gold Alchemy service.
BEGIN YOUR MEMENTO MORI COMMISSION
There is no correct time to make something from grief.It may be something you feel called to do soon after a death, or years later when you find yourself ready to open the box, take out the ring, or decide what should happen to the ashes you have been keeping.You do not need to know what the finished piece should be.You can begin by telling us what you are holding.From there, we can begin the conversation together.