Back to Your Roots

Behind the design of Tracey Beale’s family-tree–inspired Legacy Ring

By Tina Snyder

Most of designer Tracey Beale’s jewelry is story-based. Inspired by ancient Egyptian artifacts and articles of adornment, she strives to emulate their mystery in her modern relics. With the Legacy Ring, Beale sought to capture the essence of a family lineage through the generations.

“Every family tree has roots, and those qualities and characteristics continue to be passed on generation after generation,” she says. “I grasped onto the imagery of tree roots to showcase the resiliency that comes with a family legacy and translated that lineage in metal.”

Of utmost importance to Beale was fabricating the Legacy Ring design from one continuous length of wire, representing the concept of a single family lineage. To begin, she wrapped 20 gauge copper wire around a mandrel in a wavy circular pattern at about a size 4. She then used a sewing technique to weave the wire in and out of the wave, removing it from the mandrel to anneal. Using pliers, she curved, twisted, and bent the ring, hammering and stretching as she formed it from the single length of wire to the desired size.

Tracey Beale
Baltimore

“In my first iterations of the ring design, I didn’t use any solder at all, I simply formed and manipulated the wire,” she says. “But I wasn’t getting the exact gnarled root effect I was looking for. Adding the solder and melting it in a messy way gave it that twisted, organic feel.”

Using solder as a focal point rather than an often hidden means of holding components together has become a hallmark of Beale’s work. “The solder has a mind of its own. It’s spontaneous flows and drips are guided by the heat and can’t be totally controlled and I love that,” says Beale. “I like to tell stories with metal, having them grow organically from my vision. This technique enables me to design a texture and pattern that is unique to the moment and the reason it was made.”

[At press time, Beale was working on a new collection devoted to often overlooked members of society that features solder as the focal point of the work. One example, she shared, is the people who work in the service industry. “My grandmother cleaned houses for a living before I was born. I often think about the people whose work better our lives who we never see—the dishwashers in a restaurant, textile makers, and educators, for example. This collection is inspired by them.”]

The copper prototype is really a labor of love, as Beale spends hours filing down different edges and nuances of the piece, sometimes even drilling holes in different spots in a sort of distressing effort. Once a Legacy Ring design is complete in copper, Beale sends it out for casting in sterling silver.

“Casting the ring in sterling gives it stability while retaining the original design I created in copper,” she says. Beale carefully finishes each casting, oxidizing the silver and bringing out the subtleties in the metal. Each piece is as unique as its wearer.

“The finished rings mimic how families work,” she says. “We’re all descended from the same roots, but we have our own energy and spirit in the world. Whatever is passed down through the generations, we put our own stamp on that.”