Lindsay Missen

Lindsay Missen

Each piece of Lindsay Missen’s beautifully crafted jewellery carries multiple stories and quiet histories through to the present day. Over the past 25 years or more he has collected semi precious stones and antique materials while travelling the country and the world, and he fashions these into contemporary necklaces and rings which are superbly made in every facet.

A graphic designer by profession, for many years he has made jewellery for his partner, Dutch-New Zealand landscape painter Gerda Leenards, and only recently agreed to exhibit and offer his pieces for sale. His first exhibition was in December 2008 at The Diversion.

Lindsay Missen lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand.
 

Recent Work 

Some of the necklaces feature Jatim or ancient Tradewinds beads, which were very early South East Asian beads made in the 11th-13th century, and used in the early trade with Europe. These were dug up in Indonesia centuries later, and Lindsay bought them there about 10 years ago. Other semi-precious stones have also been reclaimed, like the soft red-orange banded carnelian or the deep blue lapis lazuli which feature in a number of the necklaces.

He also salvaged antique silver from a mid-Victorian card case (Birmingham), and reconstructed it into pod-shaped sterling silver beads. On some, the chasing or engraving of the silver is a feature.

The wood beads came from pieces collected over the years, some from his father’s estate, and much of it cut from old or antique objects. The African ebony came from a fragment of an old carving, the New Zealand totara burl comes from a piece found at the mouth of the Manawatu River where ancient logs have washed down from areas of inland native forest. Other pieces include European box, Indian rosewood and satinwood reclaimed from antiques.

The whalebone used in just a few pieces was given to him by his father, who found the fragment, sea-washed, on the New Zealand cost west of Lake Ferry more than 50 years ago.

Some necklaces feature ‘uncrowned’ Victorian coins – small denomination coins featuring the uncrowned head of Queen Victoria, dating from the 1860s-1880s. Lindsay has melted some of these coins to create sterling silver beads or links in the necklaces.

One of the necklaces also incorporates small pebbles found on the wreck of the Subrian in the mid 19th Century. Another is created from segments of an antique Egyptian ruler – the ebony rod cut on each marker and fitted with sterling silver into a necklace of contemporary design.
Thus each necklace is not only unique, but a carrier of history. The wearer becomes the guardian or bearer of those stories, as things of beauty find a new life and begin another story, transformed.

Please contact us to confirm current prices: most prices are posted at the time of exhibition, and may be revised as the artists’ values increase.