Kent Raible

Golden Sphere Studios, Mossyrock, Washington

Fan Ring

Sometimes a designer doesn’t have to look much farther than his own work for inspiration. That was the case for Kent Raible, who was inspired by his own previous design when creating his Fan Ring. The ring is a spin-off from his Cosmic Clam Ring, which Raible fashioned by incorporating rows of diamond-shaped granule groupings. His first thought was to make an opening chest on the finger that could hold a precious surprise. The idea of a pearl in an oyster triggered Raible’s memory of digging clams and seeing the varied zigzag patterns on the cockle shells, inspiring him to put a hinge in the back of the ring rather than on top. For the Fan Ring, he wanted to try a new pattern of diamonds set in triangular settings that are geometrically compatible with the granule pattern matrix. He evolved the clam’s design by including evenly spaced rows of diamonds within the granule matrix. Raible set the diamonds in triangular settings compatible with the hexagonal pattern that spheres of the same size make when placed next to one another. He says that spheres, if they are the same size, will nestle into a honeycomb pattern. Raible explains that he uses this phenomenon to great effect by arranging gold granules in groups of three, four, or more “to enhance and enliven a curved surface.”