A plate catalogue of the works.

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A sterling silver ring incorporating a found plastic toy soldier recovered from the artist’s garden. The broad band was produced through cuttlefish casting, leaving a natural striated texture that recalls soil layers, growth rings, erosion marks and archaeological sediment. Mounted at the crown of the ring, the miniature soldier appears playful, fragile and watchful.

Unearthed Sentinel forms part of a separate body of work centred on found objects recovered from the soil of my garden. Each discovered fragment carries an unknown history: once handled, lost, buried, weathered and then returned to sight through ordinary acts of gardening. These objects are not treated as debris, but as accidental archives containing memory, absence and narrative potential. The found object in this piece is a plastic toy soldier, a familiar childhood object associated with play, imagined conflict, strategy and heroism. Removed from its original context and re-presented as jewellery, the figure shifts in meaning. It no longer belongs to a play battlefield, but to the intimate scale of the body. It becomes less a toy than a witness. The sterling silver band was made through cuttlefish casting. This process gives the metal a naturally layered texture, formed by the cuttlebone itself rather than by direct surface decoration. In this work, the striations become conceptually important: they echo the soil from which the toy was recovered, suggesting sediment, burial, time and excavation. The band therefore becomes a cast memory of the ground. By placing the soldier on this textured silver terrain, the ring creates tension between authority and vulnerability. The figure appears to stand guard, yet it is small, worn and displaced. It suggests protection, but also the fragility of memory and the instability of heroic narratives when viewed through the lens of childhood and loss. The work also questions material value. The toy is plastic, inexpensive and mass-produced, while the ring is made in sterling silver through a traditional casting process. Their combination shifts value away from preciousness alone and toward memory, discovery and emotional charge.