My Karl Fritsch ring waited 15 years for me

It was my lucky day, as from discovery to getting to touch his work was likely just a one-day period.

I loved it straight away—the rawness of it, the feeling it projected, and the break from traditional norms of beauty. It was delightful. I then found out he lived in New Zealand.

A year later, in 2016, I moved to Auckland, New Zealand, and started a Spatial Design degree at AUT, which was just around the corner from Fingers Gallery. How convenient that I moved from one place that had his work around the corner to another!

I had been introduced to making jewellery with Noel Herd before living in Switzerland, and Karl’s work felt like permission to dream of making things beyond the conventional in jewellery. It was when I returned from Switzerland to New Zealand that Noel introduced me to wax, having decided that I would enjoy it. He was absolutely right. I loved the process of form creation and manipulation using my hands, and having seen Karl’s work allowed me to view rings as objects beyond small, pretty pieces for your fingers.

I would pop into Fingers every now and again, browsing and always trying on rings from Karl’s box of creations. Three years later, I graduated from AUT with a Bachelor of Design in Spatial Design. I had continued making rings throughout and had even started selling pieces. On a final city-based visit to Fingers, Elsie and I, of course, stopped into the gallery for a dream, and that one Karl Fritsch ring that had been there for the past three years was still there… it fit me perfectly, and I was so drawn to it. We joked that I should get myself a graduation gift, and I almost did, but my rational mind kicked in.

I ended up moving back to Auckland after a brief stint away and am still based here today. Over the past six years, I’ve popped into Fingers now and again when I’ve been nearby in the city. Each time, that one ring has been there. Most recently, last week, I found myself in Fingers after several years of not visiting, and there it was—the same ring from my first visit in 2016. I’d even saved images of it online as a reference for a ring I loved, not wanting to forget it. This time, I decided I was going to make it mine. Nine years later, that ring now resides on my finger for me and anyone I encounter to enjoy.

It’s so special to think that my
work may be appreciated by others in the same way I appreciate having this ring on my finger. It’s just there, in my eyeline, doing life with me.

Xoxo Zoe.