Jewellery Collection
In collaboration with Happy Belly
Created Dic 2024 London, United Kingdom
Part of Playground Exhibition
Guadalajara Jan 2025
6 Piece Collection
happybellyman is a UK-based artist and jeweller living along London’s waterways.
Blending ancient and modern metalsmithing techniques—such as lost wax casting—they create wearable talismans rooted in folk traditions: herbal medicine, storytelling, and mythic beings.
Their pieces carry themes of protection, wisdom, fertility, and the spirit of the trickster. As a queer person, grower, and hedge herbalist, this is the landscape from which their inspiration flows.
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play, ground. for this special collection in response to MalaCara, faces: old faces, now faces. from fascination of shared symbols and mythologies across cultures, they drew inspiration from the celtic horned god Cernunnos, who appears in image only a few times in history, with a torc necklace. one image is hammered into the silver gundestrup cauldron, where Cernunnos is pictured surrounded by animals and ethereal plants in dots - guides, energy? and in a yogic posture. this feels connected with the practice and art of Abya Yala/Anahuac/Mexico - specifically Huichol; images of deer spirits, animals in communication with man, or as in the vision paintings of Amaringo. spirit and culture connections via the deer, as well as the methods of metalwork.
metals used are copper, brass and silver, ruled by venus, mars and moon. their forms echo old objects, ritual pieces like vessels and spoons, and torc necklace of status/wealth. this is blended with happybellyman’s symbolic language: androgynous bodies, spirals, portals, plants and bells. these mark travel between possibilities and realms, growth, and protection by the sound of the bell.
pieces
pseudo ritual spoon/bowl - cernunnos
copper, brass, silver - £100
cernunnos, horned one, guardian of the threshold
smiley spoons
brass, copper, silver - £50 each (decorative)
the smiley - emoji, acid house, communicator of happy. male and female deer heads.
wyrd ring
copper, silver, size M - £120
old English word for fate, becoming. androgynous growing spirit symbolic for connection to earth and land justice, symbolic for queer nature
quartz friend
copper, quartz - nfs
stone from hebden bridge, northern english town of historical industry, hippies, lesbians and witches. stone ensouled with face and spirals.
torc
brass, copper, silver - nfs
an ancient weave, with pendents of a portal star and androgynous being, bells to ward negative energies.
for more on the project, see www.mala.cara.com
