Crimson Bloom

In Persian and Anatolian tradition, the poppy is the flower of remembrance, its crimson a color that holds grief and joy in the same breath. Shirin begins each ring by pinching the clay petal by petal, coaxing the form from a single thumb-sized piece of stoneware. The underglaze is laid on in thin washes, building depth the way watercolor pools in the valleys of paper. Gold leaf is pressed to the raw edges before the final firing, so that the heat fuses metal and earth into something neither could become alone. Worn on the hand, this ring is less an ornament than a small ceremony. The weight of fired clay, the give of the adjustable band, the way the petals catch peripheral light, each detail asks for a moment of attention.