Two identical names crudely engraved together. 'Mary Mary'.  Two women; a mother and a daughter.   Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother, outspoken, emotional, impulsive, sociable.  The daughter, Mary Godwin Shelley reserved, intense, creative, chimerical. Both brilliant, rebellious and independent. Their relationship was forged in the ten days following Mary Shelley’s birth...and ended with Wollstonecraft’s death. It was a terrible and profound loss for the little girl.  Her father taught Mary to read by urging her to trace the letters of the inscription and name on her Mother’s gravestone.  Mary Shelley quietly cherished and idealized her mother’s memory and history. She was an avid student of Wollstonecraft’s works, reading them again and again.  Mary’s inner feelings made their way into her writings.

A simple necklace composed of domestic elements. Engraved roughly on a spoon handle are the names Mary Mary. The spoon and the names have then been hammered and distressed from their earlier perfect forms. The names are indistinct...yet there is an added beauty and character to these imperfections now. The steel-centered purity of a  white Victorian button strengthens the do mestic attachment. Two talismans hang from the chain; a key-nib and a heart.  A small, vintage skeleton key has been soldered to two steel pen nibs suggesting the union of two writers - mother and daughter. A tiny vintage brass heart has been graven to a bronze and mother-of-pearl cuff link. The heart is not a showy element...half hidden....it nevertheless remains essential, providing an essential balance.