Rosie Grace Ward Cathedral Ring:

Celebrating One Year of APOC London

Rosie Grace Ward has been part of APOC since almost the beginning. Six years ago, before the store had a physical home, her first jewellery design, the Worm Necklace, launched with APOC. Emerging from her art practice and an ongoing fascination with symbolism, architecture and historical artefacts, the piece marked Rosie’s transition from artist to jeweller.

Six years on, Rosie has created a commemorative ring for APOC, looking to medieval ecclesiastical architecture and the imposing scale and permanence of historic jewellery. We spoke with her about building a practice slowly, the research that continues to shape her work, jewellery as an object that can outlive its wearer, and what it means to create something intended to endure.

We first started working together six years ago, long before APOC had a physical space. How do you feel your practice has evolved since then, and what has remained consistent?

I think I have narrowed my focus over the years and really tried to only make things that things that I’m proud of. I’ve tried to keep my values consistent in terms of trying to keep considered design and slow production at the heart of my practice. My inspiration has also remained consistent as my work as an artist and a jeweller has always been research based through museums, medieval churches and brutalist and modernist architecture.

Your Worm Necklace has become such a recognisable part of your work. Looking back at that piece now, what do you think it established about the visual language you’ve continued to develop?

The worm was born directly from my art practice and was the transition between being an artist and being a jeweller. I wanted to experiment with pewter and I just made something that felt instinctive to what my recent work had been about, which had been exploring the ouroboros and the death drive and the curling slinky links of the worm chain felt like a reflection of that infamous snake eating its tail.

For the anniversary ring, you were looking at the elaborate rings historically worn by priests and other religious figures. What initially drew you to these objects, and what did you find interesting about their scale, symbolism or ornamentation?

I spend a lot of time researching in museums and looking at art books and it’s rare that I’m directly inspired by jewellery specifically, but there is something about the presence of these artifacts that is so captivating. They are so imposing and have an architecture to them because of their height and scale, encrusted with sumptuous stones like sweets. They are not altogether practical but they are visually demanding and carry the significance of the individual who wears it. I’m interested in the transformative capacity of a wearable item, where you can understand parts of an individual by what they are wearing 

There’s something interesting about taking an object associated with ceremony, status and devotion and reinterpreting it as contemporary jewellery. How did those references translate into the final ring?

I took the scale of this historic rings and conceptualised them with the medieval ecclesiastical architecture which I am really fascinated in. I used references of architectural ornamentation like the use of quatrefoil motif’s and their semblance to the cross symbol to sort of reimagine an ecclesiastical ring.

The Cathedral Ring celebrates the first year of APOC London and begins a series of anniversary pieces. How did you create something that felt significant enough to mark that moment?

I wanted the ring to have a sense of permanence and gravitas. Looking at historic artefacts helped me think about how an object can commemorate a particular moment while continuing to feel relevant long after it has passed. Their scale and presence informed the design—and sometimes, it’s simply a case of going big or going home.

Your jewellery often feels like it sits somewhere between an artefact, an ornament and something very wearable. How do you think about that relationship between an object’s history or symbolism and the person who eventually wears it?

I feel that jewellery is supposed to be something which survives the wearer and good design should have an enduring appeal which can outlive the passing of trends and that has such a strong visual language that it almost describes the person who ends up wearing it.

This ring marks both APOC London’s first year and a much longer relationship between your practice and APOC. When you think about the last six years, what feels most significant about where your work is now, and where would you like to take it next?

I feel really lucky that my first jewellery design, the worm, launched with APOC was so popular because it has allowed me to really take my time with the design and production of my new work. I would love to take the skills I have learnt through jewellery and eventually translate them back into my art practice where I can experiment more with scale and application.