Our Coral collection is inspired by Ernst Haeckel’s book Art Forms in Nature, but I believe everything I have ever designed is inspired by Ernst Haeckel himself, even though I just recently was introduced to him and his work. Haeckel was an eminent German biologist, zoologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology. His illustrations promoted and popularized Charles Darwin’s work in Germany, and he sometimes took great (and non-scientific) leaps from available evidence. Haeckel’s work is the ultimate union of art and science. He studied the nature of form and drew forms of nature. He began with radiolarians, single celled organisms exquisite in their ornamental morphology, and continued with a comprehensive classification of the form of living things. His concentration on form rather than function allowed him to make leaps in his studies that other scientists, with their heads buried in their data, were not able to make. And his findings proved what I have always striven to portray in my jewelry – that art and science are one in the same, and when searching for pure beauty, one need look no further than their natural surroundings.
