No mass production,
just a conversation, a design and the work.

Conversation. You write, call, or arrange a visit to the workshop for a coffee. You tell me what you’re looking for, and I ask what you actually like about it, because often the important part isn’t the shape itself, but the texture, the proportions or the way the stone is shown.

Agreeing the details. We choose the form, the stone and the finish. If you bring your own stone, I examine it under a loupe and tell you straight away if I see any risks in setting it. This is when I give you the price and the estimated completion time.

At the bench. This is where the idea and everything we agreed on become a finished object. I don’t use ready-made designs or produce multiple copies of the same model. Every piece is made separately, and the technical solutions and the way it is made depend on the particular form, material and stone. Small changes can happen along the way if I see that they will make the whole thing look better or simply make it stronger.

Collection. Your finished jewellery waits for you in its box on the workshop table, or I can send it to you by courier.

How much does it cost?
Every order is different, so I don’t have a fixed price list. To get an idea of the prices, have a look at my commissions. You’ll see what previous pieces cost. You always know the exact price of your order before I start working on it.

How long does it take?
Usually 2–3 weeks from agreeing the details. If I have everything I need on hand, it’s usually quicker. If you need it for a specific date — an engagement, wedding or birthday, for example — tell me at the beginning.

Silver or gold?
I work exclusively in silver. It’s the material I know best. If you want a gold colour, I can finish the silver with a thick layer of 24-karat gold in a warm, antique shade. You can choose a stone from the ones I have in the workshop, or bring your own for me to set.

You’re not in Gdańsk?
No problem. We can arrange everything by email or phone. I’ve already made orders for clients from other cities and from abroad. I can send the finished jewellery by parcel or courier.

How do I find the right ring size?
The safest option is to visit your nearest jeweller. They can measure your finger accurately, and it’s usually free.

It’s also worth remembering that your finger changes size during the day. It’s usually slimmer in the morning and thicker in the evening and in hot weather. So it’s best to measure it during the day, not straight after getting up.

And one more thing — the wider the band, the larger the size you may need. It’s worth keeping this in mind before placing an order.

If you’re looking for an engagement ring, but not one you can find in every jewellery shop, you’re in the right place.

As you’ve probably noticed, my work is different: I use rough stones, textures, traces of the making process and forms you won’t find in typical jewellery.

If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a classic setting with small faceted stones and a perfectly smooth ring, you’ll probably be better off somewhere else.

I don’t make classic jewellery just because it’s classic, and I won’t take on a stone if I know it can’t be set safely.

Before I say no, though, I try to understand what you’re actually looking for. Quite often, there’s another way to do it.

I don’t force inspiration

The most interesting things start when there isn’t a ready-made solution yet.

An idea can come up during a conversation, but it can just as easily come earlier, completely by chance, when I see something that makes me stop for a moment. I don’t walk through the forest thinking that today I have to find a new idea for a ring. If something really catches my attention, I remember it or take a photo and come back to it later at the bench.

Sometimes it’s the texture of bark, sometimes a branch with lichen growing on it, and sometimes the shape of something I found near the water. There has to be something about it that makes me think: I’d like to see this form in silver.

I’m particularly interested in the way nature creates shapes that I probably wouldn’t come up with myself.

A good example is the lichen I once found on a branch during a walk in the forest. It wasn’t the general idea of nature that interested me, but that particular piece of lichen — its surface, the way it had grown onto the wood, its irregular edges and all the small details that made it look the way it did.

For some time now, I’ve had an idea for a ring that would look as if that piece of lichen had actually grown on a finger. I don’t know exactly how I’ll make it yet, and that’s what makes it interesting. It might take me a long time. I might come back to it several times. Not everything has to be figured out right now.

The same thing happened with the sea, although there’s also the whole story of my marine aquarium, which kept me fascinated for several years.

What interested me wasn’t just what you could see at first glance, but the huge variety of organisms and the relationships between them. From tiny creatures such as polychaete worms, through starfish and other echinoderms, wild crabs that arrived with the live rock and shrimp, all the way to the larger structures created by corals — there was always something to notice.

You could look at the aquarium for a long time and still keep noticing something new. Sometimes a creature would appear for a moment and disappear again. Other times, it took much longer before you realised that something was actually living there.

A large part of my jewellery has its roots in these observations, especially the forms connected with coral reefs.

That’s interesting to me for another reason too. Nature arrives at its forms in very different ways. A branch or a bud can change within a single season, while reef structures develop through much longer processes.

It’s not really about the length of time. What interests me is that the final result can be incredibly complex, even though nobody drew it first or planned it in the way you plan an object at the bench.

That’s why I like looking at these things up close. I often feel that many of the forms I’d like to make were invented by nature a long time ago — and better than I could have done them myself.

Lava fascinates me for a completely different reason. It starts with something violent and destructive and ends as solid rock that you can hold in your hand and look at up close.

With Lava, it was the surface created after the material solidifies that interested me — porous, full of holes and random shapes.

In silver, you can build a form that doesn’t try to imitate a perfect surface, but lets the surface remain what it is.

That’s where the Lava rings and bands came from. Maybe more pieces will appear in this collection over time, but for now the form itself still gives me plenty to work with.

The design takes shape at the bench

Once something catches my attention, a completely different part of the work begins.

I don’t make detailed drawings and then simply reproduce a finished design from them. Usually I have a general direction in my head, and it’s only at the bench that I start checking what can actually be made.

The material often suggests the next solution. Something that was supposed to look one way at the beginning can start leading me somewhere else after the first part is made. If that new direction seems better, I follow it.

That’s why designing and making jewellery are really one process for me. I don’t design something first and then produce it according to a set of instructions. A large part of the design actually happens while I’m working.

What I learned from Szymon

I learned many of the techniques I use from my brother Szymon. He gave me the chance to enter this world through the workshop and taught me the basics without which I couldn’t work the way I do today.

Soldering, silver, different types of solder, their hardness, the order in which different elements need to be made — these are things you simply have to know.

Szymon works very differently from me, though. There’s more order in his work, more measuring, clearly defined stages and control over what happens at each step. I react more to what appears on the bench.

These are two different worlds, but I don’t see them as opposites. The technical foundation I got from him is still part of the way I work. Without it, my story with jewellery would probably have looked completely different.

Silver, surfaces and what happens along the way

I feel most comfortable working in silver because I know the material and understand how it behaves. It’s forgiving and predictable, while still giving me a lot of possibilities, especially when you don’t try to smooth everything out at all costs.

The natural darkening of silver isn’t always something that needs to be removed. Sometimes it’s exactly what makes the surface more interesting.

On the outside, I like leaving traces of the making process and irregularities. The inside of a ring, however, is usually polished very carefully so that it sits comfortably on the finger and is easy to keep clean. What happens on the outside and what happens against the finger don’t have to look the same.

The finish can also be oxidation or gold plating. These give the surface a completely different character.

I’m becoming more and more interested in the finishes themselves and in how colour can be introduced without destroying the small structures that matter most to me. I’d like to go much deeper into this in the future.

I’m thinking about black, matte white, coral red and other colours that could appear alongside forms inspired by lichens or marine organisms.

I also have an enamel kiln that’s sitting there waiting for its moment.

Not everything has to happen at once.

Not everything works the first time

Handmade work also means that sometimes something simply doesn’t work.

It happens that in the evening I look at a finished piece and think everything is fine, only to see the next day, in daylight, that something isn’t quite right. The piece is correctly made, but I simply don’t like it as much as I did the day before.

I don’t immediately throw everything into the scrap box. If something can be cut, soldered again or reshaped, I usually try to save it. Sometimes I put a piece aside and come back to it later, when I know what I actually want to change.

There are more stressful situations too. When setting a stone, a prong can come off if something wasn’t soldered properly. Silver has the advantage that you can remove the damaged element and make it again.

It’s more difficult when the piece has already been gold-plated or has another finish, because heat can then mean having to redo a much larger part of the work.

Amber can be particularly demanding, especially when it has an irregular shape. The setting has to be fitted to the particular stone, and you have to be careful not to damage it while setting it.

Over time, you simply learn where you can afford to take more risks and where you need to slow down.

First, you need to understand what is actually meant to be made

The same applies to commissions.

When someone brings their own stone, I first need to examine it carefully. I check for cracks or areas that could become a problem during setting. If I see a risk, I say so straight away.

I don’t want a client to find out about a problem only after the stone has already been damaged. Sometimes it’s better to look for another stone or change the way it will be set. If I know that a particular stone can’t be set safely, I have to be able to say that I won’t do it.

The conversation with a client also doesn’t follow one fixed pattern.

If someone shows me a photo of a particular ring, we can use it as a starting point and make something in a similar direction, but not necessarily an identical copy.

If someone comes with their own idea, I try to understand what they actually like about it, because sometimes the most important thing isn’t the shape itself, but a particular texture, the way the stone is shown or the proportions.

And if someone gives me complete freedom, I usually start with whatever is most concrete about the commission.

If the client brings a stone, I first think about how to show it and how to set it. Only then do the silver surface, proportions and the rest of the form come into play.

It isn’t a fixed order, though. Every commission can begin a little differently.

I remember a situation from the beginning of my work that taught me not to end a conversation too quickly.

Two women came to me wanting to have wedding bands made in white gold. At the time I didn’t work with that material, so I simply told them that I didn’t have it and wouldn’t be able to make them.

The conversation ended and they left.

Only later did I start thinking about it and realised that I didn’t have to stop there. I could have asked what they actually needed, talked about other possibilities or tried to find a solution.

Today I look back at that situation and think: that’s not how you do it.

It was a specific mistake I made, but that’s exactly why I remember it. Not because I didn’t make those two rings, but because I decided too quickly that if I couldn’t make exactly what someone was asking for, then I had nothing else to offer.

Today I try to look for a solution first.

That doesn’t mean everything is possible or that I’ll accept every commission without thinking about it. It’s more about understanding what the other person is actually looking for, and only then deciding whether and how it can be done.

The situations I find most interesting are the ones where a client has only a general idea and gives me some freedom. That gives me room to add my own way of looking at form to the conversation.

Sometimes something comes out of a commission that starts to develop a life of its own.

That happened with a client from Lithuania. First I made an engagement ring for him, and later he came back for wedding bands.

They weren’t classic wedding bands. They had something of the character of old Roman rings — heavier forms, stones and that distinctive imperfection that makes them look a little like objects found during an archaeological dig.

That commission opened up a direction I hadn’t explored in that way before, and over time more pieces with a similar character appeared.

That’s sometimes how a new direction begins: not with a plan to create a collection, but with a specific conversation with a specific person.

Sometimes I’m not the one who brings the idea to the workshop

Another time, the idea came to me almost ready-made in the form of a material.

Sylwia, whom I’ve known since our days at the Fine Arts High School in Gdynia-Orłowo, makes ceramics. One day she showed me some of her small ceramic “eyes”.

They were small, came in different shapes and colours, and there were things happening on their surfaces that simply couldn’t have been designed on a computer.

I immediately saw them in silver.

First I made a few settings to see how they would look together. Later Sylwia came to the workshop with a whole bag of ceramics and emptied it onto the table.

We looked through the pieces over coffee, and it was almost immediately clear that this was the beginning of something good.

That’s how Kerá came about.

Not because I sat down one day and decided to create another collection, but because someone brought material into the workshop that caught my attention.

Sylwia makes the ceramic elements. I get the finished pieces, and only then do I start thinking about the silver.

I like the small differences between them.

I have no control over what happens while they are being made and fired, so when they reach me, I have to adapt to them.

It reverses the usual order of work a little.

I don’t start with my own form and then choose an addition for it. First I have something that already exists, and only then do I build the rest around it.

Something similar happens with commissions where a client brings their own object or stone.

Sometimes someone shows me a shell and asks whether it could be turned into a pendant. Another time someone comes with a stone they received from someone close to them.

In these situations, the most important thing for me is not to lose the reason why that particular thing ended up in the workshop in the first place.

I don’t want to cover it with silver just because I know how to make an impressive setting.

If something is meant to be the starting point, it should remain important.

The first reaction matters most

And then comes the moment that is probably the most interesting part of the whole process for me.

The work is finished, the ring is ready, and I put it on the table.

Sometimes the box is already prepared, the coffee is brewing, the client arrives and simply opens it.

There isn’t much to explain at that point.

You can talk about why something was made in a particular way, but the first reaction matters most.

That’s the moment when I find out whether what has been my idea and my work for the last few days or weeks actually reaches the other person.

Of course, there are things that happen along the way that the client will never see.

A stone can crack just before the deadline and suddenly I have to find a similar one.

I once had a situation where, instead of calmly finishing an order, I was travelling around Gdańsk by tram from one trusted place to another, trying to find a stone that would let me meet the deadline.

There have also been days when something had to be corrected for the second or third time, even though the finished piece looked completely normal from the outside.

That’s part of the work.

The client usually sees the box on the table. They don’t see all the decisions, changes and small problems that happened along the way.

Not everything I make has to reveal itself immediately, either.

I like the fact that the surface of a ring can change with the light. One part can be clearly visible when the light comes from the side, and a few seconds later it disappears into shadow.

It reminds me a little of my aquarium, where some creatures appeared only for a moment. You knew they were there, but you had to look at exactly the right time.

Jewellery can work in a similar way.

Some details don’t have to reveal themselves immediately.

The workshop is not a finished story

And maybe that’s why the Workshop isn’t a finished story for me.

There are still things I want to come back to.

The lichen I’d like to transfer onto a finger one day so accurately that, at first glance, it would be difficult to tell whether it was still a plant or already silver.

Surfaces, colours and finishing techniques that I haven’t fully worked out yet.

The enamel kiln waiting for its moment.

More forms that will probably appear by chance, when I see something or when someone brings a material into the workshop that I’ve never looked at quite that way before.

Because that’s what this part of the work is about for me.

Not having a fixed list of things I’ll make over the next few years.

It’s about leaving myself room to react to whatever appears along the way.

Sometimes it will be a client’s idea, sometimes a stone, sometimes a piece of ceramic, and sometimes something I find on an ordinary walk.

Then I sit down at the bench and start finding out what can be made from it.