Scotland Has Coral Reefs

If you stand looking out over the sea on the west coast of Scotland, it can look dark, cold and sometimes fairly empty. It really isn’t. The more time I spend around the sea, and the more I learn about what is actually going on beneath the surface, the more amazed by it I become.

The sea has always found its way into my jewellery. Not because I sit down and decide I need to make something “inspired by the ocean”, but because it has been part of my life for such a long time.

Back at college, the underwater world were already creeping into the things I made. Later, while backpacking in Australia, I did my first scuba dives on the Great Barrier Reef. I can still remember that feeling of finally witnessing with my own eyes, this whole other landscape underneath the surface that i had only ever seen on TV. It made me emotional, if Im being honest.

Since then, most of my time in the water has been much closer to home, diving and snorkelling in Scotland.  And the older I get, the more Im actually fighting the trends and fashion world...I genuinely dont want to make something because it  just looks pretty.

Coral reefs in Scotland

We tend to associate coral reefs with clear, warm tropical seas. Scotland has something quite different.   We have these wondrous cold-water coral reefs grow in deep, dark water off our western coast. Near Mingulay and Barra in the Outer Hebrides, they are found unusually shallow for this type of coral. I found this fascinating when i found out and thats when I soent more time looking into it.

The main reef-forming coral has long been known as Lophelia pertusa. Its currently accepted scientific name is Desmophyllum pertusum, but Lophelia is the name many will still recognise from years of research and writing about these reefs. It doesn't need sunlight in the way tropical reef-building corals do. Instead, it feeds from the water around it. Over time its hard skeleton creates a three-dimensional reef. And that is where it becomes much more interesting to me. Because the coral is not just existing for itself. Its structure creates places for other life to settle, hide, feed and shelter. Sponges, anemones, crustaceans, fish and many other creatures make use of the reef. a really extraordinary and beautiful underwater community.  And the Atlantic is part of that story too. Around Mingulay, tidal currents move across the reef and help carry food towards the coral and other animals living there.

It is an entire living system.

Looking at what nature does

This is the part I keep coming back to in my work.

Nature is obviously beautiful. I could spend the rest of my life making jewellery based purely on the shapes, textures and landscapes I see outdoors and probably never run out of ideas. But, I want my jewellery to represent more and I find myself interested in what nature is actually doing.

A coral reef grows. It creates structure. That structure gives protection and makes room for other life. Water moves through it, carrying what is needed. It is simply doing what it does, yet the result is this incredibly rich community of life. There is something in that which feels worth holding onto.

We live in a world that puts a lot of emphasis on having more, being seen and keeping up with trends. I would rather make pieces that carry something so much more.

Look around you, learn about the natural world, care for it. Because small things matter.

That is where these three pieces came from.

Lophelia

The circular Lophelia Reef Pendant looks at gathering and growth.

Some Lophelia colonies can develop ring and halo-like reef forms as growth continues around older coral. I didnt want to copy a coral specimen in silver. Instead, small silver forms gather around an open centre, capturing the idea of separate growth becoming part of something much larger.

For me, it carries a very simple thought. Small acts of care, repeated and shared, can become something far greater than any one of us could create alone.

Prolifera

Prolifera is perhaps the 'quietest' piece of the three, but I love the meaning behind its name.

Lophelia prolifera is an old scientific name once used for this same cold-water coral. The word holds that sense of producing, growing and multiplying. So the pendant became a gathering of small silver forms, each individual but sitting closely together until they create something larger.

Its not meant to be a literal coral colony. Its my interpretation of abundance, growth and life gathering around life. A little reminder that what we nurture, protect and contribute can become part of something richer than ourselves.

Atlantic Reef

Atlantic Reef grew from an earlier design of mine called Edge of the Reef.

That design was always about water moving through coral reefs. Flowing strands of silver pass across and through gathered forms, like  a current finding its way through a living reef. Learning more about the cold water reefs west of Scotland gave that older idea another layer. At Mingulay, the movement of the water really matters. Tidal currents and down welling help transport food towards the reef.  So Atlantic Reef is about movement, but also connection.

Life is always moving and changing around us. Theres strength in the ways we support, protect and make space for one another while it does.

More than a pretty shape

This is what I want my jewellery to be. Not a trend. Not whatever happens to be popular this year. I want it to come from places I have walked through, swum in, dived beneath, learned about and cared enough about to look closer...the places you also visit, feel deep inside and care about too.

Sometimes that becomes a Scottish mountain. Sometimes an island. Sometimes a piece of seaweed that was floating a few feet beneath my fins.  And sometimes it is a coral reef lying in cold, dark water off the Outer Hebrides that most of us will never see with our own eyes.

The three new pieces, Lophelia, Prolifera and Atlantic Reef, are now part of my Reef Collection.

All made in silver on the Isle of Arran.

A small piece of an extraordinary world beneath our own waters, made to be carried above them.

[Explore the Reef Collection]