In August 2014, Makers Move was invited by “Röhsska Museum” and went on three locations during “Upmarket”, “Hnoss Initiative”, and “New Adventures in Jewellery”.

Ann

In front of "Stora Teatern" in the centre of Gothenburg, we met Ann together with her friend.

This ring I bought at the beginning of 2011 to be my ‘lucky-ring’. I ordered it from a goldsmith and I waited for it for several weeks, and looked forward in anticipation to receive it. Finally, I got it, and I really needed it, cause at that time I had lived in an unhappy marriage for 16 years, and my job was also a disaster. I thought, now I’m going to listen to my inner voice and find happiness – and I put on the ring and felt, wooooow (Ann’s friend interrupts here and says, ‘Yes, but why this particular ring? You have to tell them about that’). Ohhhhh Yes, I forgot that. It was the year of the Dragon, and earlier I had been with a Chinese guy who was very cautious about always wearing something red during the year of the Dragon, so to ensure some happiness, he wore red underwear throughout the whole year. So, I thought that a ring with a red stone, that I would wear every day could potentially spread some joy.

But prosperity didn’t arrive, and I continued my miserable marriage, and didn’t gain the power I had wished for, but thought that maybe things would turn around since it was still the year of the Dragon. I went to New York and had a good time with my family, but fundamentally there was still something wrong. So, when I went home from a party in my car, I had an accident on the highway – it was a severe one. I was left with a lot of internal bleeding and an almost-broken neck. I was released from hospital after half a year, and finally got back my senses, and mobility after the accident, and thought I better get rid of this damn ring, and I threw it in my house and hoped never to see it again.

But, I found it again a year before I moved to London, and decided that I had to subdue the ring. So I took it with me on the flight. I was flying together with my 15-year-old daughter. During the flight I told her about the ring, that it had been an ‘unlucky’ ring for so long, and once we took off I put it back on my finger in a bit of a brutal and dramatic way, and she said to me, ‘Mom, now it has to change into a lucky-ring’. So, she invented a ritual and we transformed it by rubbing the ring 3 times, all the while wishing it to become a lucky-ring. Today, it’s been 4 weeks since I put the ring back on, before that I hated it and didn’t dare wear it. But the accident was a turning point in my life and it resulted in a divorce, because it made me realise that I had a repetitive life and a sad marriage. So, the ring was a reminder and made me understand that the accident made me so much stronger, and changed my life fundamentally, and that I had gone through something horrible, but in the end something I would not have wished to be without.