Hold Series 08 “Tender Sentinel”

This is the 8th pendant in my Hold series.
The theme of this series is embrace.

A pearl is nurtured by an Akoya oyster. The oyster is nurtured by the sea. The sea is nourished by rainwater flowing from the mountains, and the leaves are the first to receive the rain. This pendant is inspired by this eternal and mysterious cycle of nature, using a pearl and a leaf as motifs.

To me, this cycle is not only a natural law but also a symbol of mutual care and love. When I expand this interpretation, I begin to see the relationship between the pearl and the leaf as that of a mother and child.

A pearl unknowingly receives love from the ocean, the mountains, and the leaves. In the same way, we too, though we may no longer remember it, were once cradled in our mother’s arms and showered with love in our early childhood.

Life can be hard. For some, the hardships increase with age. That’s why the theme of embrace is so important. Without it, our hearts may dry up. An embrace is like nourishing rain for the soul.

A life filled only with ease might resemble a pearl with a thin nacre and shallow luster. It’s often through enduring hardship that a thick, luminous nacre is formed—just like a beautiful pearl.
The more we experience sorrow, the deeper and richer our joy can become.

Perhaps many of us are quietly yearning for an embrace. I certainly am. But we must not only seek it—we must also offer it to others as an act of kindness.

While crafting this pendant through metalwork, I poured all these thoughts into it. I’m still a beginner at metalworking, and things don’t always go as I imagine. But precisely because of that, the joy I feel when a piece is finally completed is immense.

The silver part of this pendant is rhodium-plated. Rhodium plating enhances its resistance to scratches and tarnishing, while giving it a bright, refined luster. It’s a finish that helps preserve the beauty of the piece over time with minimal maintenance.

This Hold Series was created with the theme of embrace, using a leaf and a pearl as its motifs.

Unlike the other pieces in the series, the fitting of this pendant is designed from a thin silver plate. To be honest, it originally came from a practice attempt at making a ring with a flat silver plate during my early days of metalworking. One day, while tidying up my workshop, I found it again. Rather than letting it go to waste, I decided to turn it into a pendant for the Hold Series.

The fitting of this pendant also carries the image of a withered leaf, evoking a sense of fragility. Those who embrace others—such as mothers holding their children—possess a strong will to protect. Yet, they remain human. Of course, carrying a child on their back for hours is exhausting. Daily routines of preparing meals, shopping, and school drop-offs add to the fatigue.

A mother who embraces her child is both a strong presence and, at the same time, a fragile one. A child has their mother by their side, but often the mother must persevere alone. Personally, I feel that many husbands are not as supportive of their wives as they should be.

The pearl used in this pendant was harvested in Tsushima, an island lying at the border between Japan and Korea. From ancient times, Tsushima has been known as a frontier island, a land of sentinels guarding the nation.

By combining these ideas, I named this piece “Tender Sentinel.”

That said, I don’t assign profound meaning to every product name. Fundamentally, my reason for doing metalwork is to create fittings for pearls that are left unused in the process of making necklaces and earrings. I give them a stage to shine.

When making fittings through metalwork, I thought it would be good to set a theme, which led me to create the Hold Series. There are eight works in this series, each with its own name, though I only started naming them partway through.

Before that, my pieces were titled in a mechanical way—“8mm Necklace,” “7mm Earrings”—like items in a product specification sheet. I felt there was little charm in that, so more recently, I began giving them unique names.

For example, a necklace made during a hot summer noon was simply called “Summer Noon.” The names are often chosen rather casually, but when I look back at them, they trigger memories of the time of creation: “Ah, that was the necklace from those hot summer days.”

For customers too, these names provide a way to connect: “I see, that’s why it has that name—because of the environment, situation, and process in which it was made.”

I believe it is more interesting to convey not only that these are pearl pieces crafted with fittings, but also the processes, thoughts, and backgrounds behind them.