Fervent Moon: The Jewellery Label Crafting Wearable Sculpture

1. Who is it? Fervent Moon is the jewellery label of artist Lewis Teague Wright, who also hosts the monthly NTS radio show of the same name
2. Why do I want it? Anti-intuitive, wearable sculptures at the intersection of the audible, visual, and plastic arts
3. Where can I find it? Fervent Moon is available directly via the brand’s website

Who is it? Nearly two decades ago, artist Lewis Teague Wright registered a website called Fervent Moon, where each day, a new MP3 was uploaded only to vanish after a week. The fleeting digital archive then evolved into a long-running monthly NTS radio show, which came to function as a personal time capsule. “They play a large role as anchors for my emotional memory,” he reflects. “I’m able to listen back and place myself in the exact room that I was in when producing them.” Now, Wright translates these ideas into a new creative language: jewellery that melds sound, memory and duration into a living tangent between his sonic and artistic identities. 

Wright’s background lies in the art world, where his practice moves between embroidered works punctuated with Polaroids and photographs, video pieces developed in collaboration with musicians, and large-scale sculpture. “But I always found there was this disconnect between the physicality of art and video art – they can’t be touched,” he explains. “Wearable products really aligned and filled the void that I had been missing previously.” Jewellery design was always within arm’s reach: his parents are jewellers, working together for some 40 years, and he has “sporadically assisted them my whole life.” “It’s very much a family affair,” he laughs gently. “They’ve encouraged me and are excited to see what my interpretation of this world is.” 

The jewellery line shares its name with his radio show, gathering these different worlds into a single orbit. For Wright, it completes a trifecta of his audio, visual and physical interests: “There’s the music, the product, and then there’s also the documentation.” The result is a universe where a chain is never just a chain, but a wearable sculpture designed to resonate softly with the organic clamour of a body in motion. “Something that’s really elevated me is the tactility of it, from previously making sculptures that couldn’t be touched,” he says. “And now I get to create something that fully removes itself from my presence and takes on its own life.” 

Why do I want it? In an industry where polite refinement governs the mainstream, Wright began his initial collection with chains inspired by the peripheral details he noticed while skirting the outskirts of new cities: street furniture, scraps of industrial debris. These became the raw material for his first designs, anti-intuitive as much in their construction as their inspiration. Take, for example, the Moon Link Chain, which has undulating teeth set on the inside. “Because the grooves are never quite aligned, the chain becomes activated by the little chimes or clinks they make,” he explains. “It’s like a minimal audible symphony, noticeable when you’re alone.” If silver is his preferred medium – “gold captures the light, but silver puts it back into the world” – it’s as though Wright’s jewellery lives in lockstep with its wearer, and not as a simple bystander-adornment. 

If the chains – both necklaces and bracelets – are the medium through which he can express his interest in jewellery, then the collection expands naturally into charms, or as Wright says, “the opulence of adornment.” “It goes back to this idea of a vehicle of noise,” he explains. “Chains are something that cannot only make sound, but can also carry more sound through adornment.” The charms in question are cheeky riffs on traditional talismans: a ‘Pondering Chimp,’ ‘Quarrelling Angels,’ or a ‘Horny Pig’ (described wryly as “a charm that winks as much as it wards”). Intended to imbue the pieces with “reverence, honour,” they reverberate with sound and sentiment, marking the wearer’s story as it unfolds.

Wright’s collection to date – chains, rings, earrings, and charms – was recently presented at Ginny on Frederick in London. Inspired by his own artistic practice, as well as the way antiquities are displayed at institutions like the V&A, the jewellery was suspended on fine brass armatures, set against a swathe of midnight blue fabric that ribboned its way around the gallery walls. If jewellery presentations are usually static, Wright was “thinking about sheet music and notes on a bar. I wanted the jewellery to be presented as these little bursts of light that dance about the room.” There were also no vitrines or plinths interrupting the space between the viewer and the work. “This idea that the presentation is governed by gravity felt anti-intuitive to me, when the work is about its activation,” he explains. “I wanted them to be bold and confident, singing and flying.”

Where can I find it? Fervent Moon is available directly via the brand’s website.