Hand Carved Moon Earrings

The moon is not smooth. It never has been. Four and a half billion years of impacts have left their mark on every inch of its surface, craters within craters, mountains thrown up by ancient collisions, dust so fine it clings to everything it touches. The moon has been keeping a record of everything that has ever hit it since the beginning of the solar system, and it wears every mark it has ever received. These earrings understand that.

The Moon

The lunar surface is one of the most geologically preserved records in our solar system. Unlike Earth, which has weather and plate tectonics and an atmosphere that slowly erases the evidence of ancient impacts, the moon has none of these things. Every crater is a record. Every mountain range was thrown up by a collision billions of years ago and has stayed exactly where it landed ever since. The youngest craters on the moon are still considered ancient by any earthly measure. The oldest ones have been there since before life existed on this planet.

The moon also has no light of its own. Everything you see when you look up at it is borrowed sunlight, reflected back across nearly a quarter million miles of space. The full moon is the moon with its whole face turned toward the sun. The crescent is the moon mid-cycle, one lit edge curving in the dark. Both are the same moon at different moments of its endless patient journey.

The Piece

Two moons, each one about half an inch across and entirely hand formed from recycled sterling silver, their surfaces built up with craters, divots, raised mountains, caverns, and holes that catch the light and shadow the way the real lunar surface does when you look at it through a telescope and suddenly realize how much is actually there. The texture is not decorative. It is interpretive, one silversmith's honest reading of what the moon actually looks like up close.

You choose how you wear them. A matching pair of full moons for when you want the whole face of it. A matching pair of crescents for when you want the moon mid-transformation. Or one of each, mismatched, because the moon is always both things at once depending on where you are standing and when you look up.

Sterling silver posts and backs throughout.

Each pair is made to order just for you, which means each moon will be its own slightly unique world because no two hand formed things ever come out exactly alike and the moon itself is proof that variation is not a flaw.

The Craftsmanship

• Earrings: approximately 0.5 inches each
• Material: recycled sterling silver throughout, oxidized
• Style: post studs with sterling silver backs
• Options: matching full moons, matching crescents, or one of each
• Edition: made to order, each pair unique

A Note from Tamara

I made these because I wanted to wear the moon the way it actually looks, not a simplified symbol of it but the real thing, all craters and texture and ancient marks and borrowed light. Every time I look at the moon I think about how long it has been up there keeping its records and I find that deeply comforting. I hope whoever wears these looks up a little more often.

Shipping

Your moons will be made to order just for you in my little studio in the New Hampshire woods. Please allow one to two weeks for them to be created. You will receive a tracking number by email so you can follow them on their journey to their new home.