In my last entry I said I was working on a piece for a wearer in São Paulo whose letter had unusual constraints, and that I would write about it when it shipped. It shipped on February 27, 2031. The wearer's name is Beatriz. I want to write about the piece because it asked me to do something I had not done before, and I learned something specific from it.
The unusual part
Beatriz wrote to commission a piece for someone she had never met.
The recipient is the goddaughter of Beatriz's late grandmother. The grandmother — her name was Olga — died in 2024. Olga had been a godmother to a young woman named Lia in São Paulo who, as it turned out, Beatriz had only ever heard about. Olga had mentioned Lia in letters and in conversation. Beatriz knew Lia's name, knew she lived in São Paulo, knew Olga had baptized her in 1998. Beatriz did not know what Lia looked like, had not seen a photograph, did not have her current address. She had been thinking, since Olga's death, that she should find Lia. In late 2030 she finally did. Lia is 32 now. She works at a small museum in the city.
Beatriz wrote to ask if SENMOMO would make a piece for Lia, as a kind of inheritance — something that would mean to Lia what Olga's memory should mean to her, even though the two had not been in contact for many years. Beatriz wanted to give Lia something that her godmother would have given her, had Olga lived.
This is the constraint that made the letter unusual. I had no wearer to interview. I had a wearer (Beatriz) who could give me only what she knew of someone else (Olga) telling her about a third person (Lia). I would design for a person across two layers of secondhand description. mo had to be consulted on this one. I asked her whether I should take it. She said: "Take it. This is the kind of piece that I cannot make anymore — I would over-think it. You should make it because you will not over-think it."
I am still trying to figure out whether mo was complimenting me or warning me.
What Beatriz could tell me
I asked Beatriz to tell me what Olga had said about Lia. I asked over the course of several weeks, in fragments — not all at once. Beatriz wrote back in fragments too. Here are the facts I had at the end:
Olga had told Beatriz, in 2017 or thereabouts, that Lia "looked like the sky in February." Beatriz did not know what month or what city Olga had been thinking of when she said that. It might have been Beatriz's own São Paulo February, which would have been a thin overcast white. It might have been Olga's youth in southern Brazil, where February is summer-storm purple. Beatriz did not know.
Olga had told Beatriz that Lia "would never wear something that announced itself." Olga had wanted to give Lia a small gold cross when she was confirmed, around 2012, but Lia's mother had asked Olga not to — Lia did not wear jewelry. Olga had been disappointed but had honored it.
Olga had told Beatriz that Lia "read books to know what her mother was thinking." Beatriz did not know what this meant. She thought it might be metaphorical. I asked her to tell me what she thought it might be metaphorical for. She said: probably that Lia and her mother did not communicate well, and that Lia used the books her mother read as a kind of map to her mother's interior.
Those were the three things. The sky in February. Would not wear something that announced itself. Read books to know what her mother was thinking.
This is what I had.
The week of not doing anything
I sat with the brief for a week without pulling any trays. I want to be honest about how uncomfortable that week was. I had been used to having a direct conversation with the wearer, building the piece through a back-and-forth of clarifying questions. With Beatriz I could ask any number of clarifying questions, but each new fact about Olga or Lia was filtered through Beatriz, who had not known Lia and was reaching across two distances at once.
At a certain point in the second week, I stopped trying to clarify. I sat at the bench with the three facts on a piece of paper in front of me. I asked myself: what would I make if I trusted what I have, without trying to know more?
What I made, in my head before I made it on the bench, was this:
A piece in the cool family — moonstone, aquamarine, a small lapis. The lapis for "the sky in February" — not knowing which sky, I went toward the deeper end. The moonstone for "would not wear something that announced itself" — the moonstone is the quietest stone in our library. The aquamarine for "reads books to know what her mother was thinking" — aquamarine is the stone of transition, of moving between, which is what Beatriz's interpretation of the phrase suggested to me.
One moonstone, two small lapis, four aquamarine. Five-bead piece. Quieter than most pieces we make. The smallest piece I have ever sent.
The message to Beatriz
I sent her the photograph with a longer message than usual. I tried to explain the three associations directly — lapis for the sky, moonstone for the quiet, aquamarine for the reaching across. I told her I had decided not to ask for more facts about Lia, because I thought adding more would dilute the piece. I told her I would understand if she wanted me to remake it with more detail; I described it as my best honest reading of what she had given me.
She wrote back within a few hours. She said one thing: "I think Olga would have made this." She approved it.
I shipped the piece to Lia in São Paulo on February 27. Beatriz wrote me a note to include in the box, which I will not quote. It introduced Beatriz to Lia and explained what the piece was and where it had come from.
What Lia wrote
Lia wrote to us — to SENMOMO, not to Beatriz — about ten days after she received the piece. She wrote in Portuguese, which Daisy and I had to translate. I want to share a small part, with her permission.
"I never met the woman who made this happen, but I think she must have been good. I am wearing the bracelet today, the third day in a row, and I have noticed that the bracelet is the kind of object a person who reads books to know what her mother thinks would actually wear. I do not know how you knew that. But you knew."
I read that to mo. mo was quiet for a long moment. Then she said: "You did not know. You guessed correctly. But you did not know." Then she said: "That is what doing this work for a long time is."
I had not thought about it that way. But she is right. I did not know what Lia would actually wear. I guessed, based on the three facts, what she might wear. The guess was correct, but the guess was a guess. The piece worked because I trusted the guess instead of trying to verify it.
I want to think about this more before I write about it again. But I think mo named a principle that I had not been able to name myself: at a certain point in a craft, a good guess produced from limited information is more valuable than a slow verification of complete information. Because the slow verification often does not arrive. And the piece still has to be made.
What this means for wearers reading this
I want to write a small note for wearers, because I do not want this entry to be read as a recommendation that everyone commission pieces for people they have never met. Beatriz's request was unusual. It worked because she trusted my interpretation and because Lia turned out to be the kind of person Olga had described. It could have not worked. I knew the risk; Beatriz knew the risk; we proceeded carefully.
If you are thinking of commissioning a piece for someone you do not know well, write to us first. We will not always say yes. When we do say yes, we will be clearer than usual about what the piece can and cannot do, and we may ask for fewer facts and more atmosphere — because atmosphere transfers better through secondhand description than fact does. The São Paulo piece taught me that.
Until June
I will write again in June, depending on whether mo and I time the alternation right. I am working on a piece for a wearer in Mexico City right now whose letter has the opposite problem — too much information rather than too little. I may write about that one if it ships in time. Or I may write about something else.
Thank you to Beatriz, who let me share this. Thank you to Lia, who wrote back and who trusted a strange package from Hainan enough to wear what was inside. Thank you to Olga, whom I never met, for being the kind of godmother whose memory could produce a piece this gentle.
— Wei