Micro-Mosaic Jewelry: the Ultimate Souvenirs
"My mother went to Italy, and all I got was this stupid tee shirt." I know you've seen them: tee shirts on which only the name of the place changes and everything else stays the same. This says a lot about how a globalized economy encourages us to think of souvenirs: not as location-based mementos of personal experiences but as cheaply reproduced, interchangeable commodities.
But we don't travel to buy keychains: we travel to expand our consciousness, to be present in beautiful cities like Rome or Shanghai, to live amongst the ruins of the past. It's impossible to bring back any one object that captures for us that personal sense of wonder when we stand in the Louvre or in the lion-yellow sun of the Sahara.
Still, I love local crafts--the touch of the local artisan, the materials of the area, valuable mostly for the history of the work. How I adore, then, Victorian micro- mosaic jewelry! Created as souvenirs of the European Grand Tour, these elegant brooches, rings, or earrings combined local craft and commemorative value. Artisans used tiny pieces of glass or enamel, called "tesserae" (often less than a millimeter wide), to depict significant ruins or must-see sights for young travelers. The Colosseum, the Temple of Apollo, even floor tile designs from the newly-excavated Pompeii--each could be placed on a background of lapis or onyx and set to wear. "I see you've been to St. Peter's Basilica," one might later remark, in a London drawing room, complimenting another on her brooch.
Imagine how such places must have seemed to such Victorians: no internet preparing them for gazing through the Pantheon's oculus, with only the sky to stare back. Such experiences were considered more than just historical education for the well-to-do Victorian: they were key to a moral, emotional, and sensual refinement of spirit. And it IS still possible to travel and engage the spirit--we just have to stay present for the tiny flashes of wonder that make up our own mosaic of experience.
When I wear one of our micro-mosaic pieces, I run my finger over the hundreds of tesserae and feel touch of the human hand that made them. It's a transactional magic that transcends the commercial world.
