FINDERS STORIES: RUTH OF STUDIO RUA
Finding Creativity in our Ancient Past
Our 17th Century Seal Ring, Pipe Tamper impression brought to life by Ruth at Studio Rua.
As designers we discover a lot of creativity and inspiration hidden within our finds. Ruth Leach (also known as Studio Rua) is a mudlarker and jeweller who shares this particular creative passion with us.
After being long admirers of Ruth’s work on Instagram and particularly how she channels her passion for history and artefacts into timeless contemporary jewellery pieces that embody the essence of ancient artefacts in themselves. We have had the pleasure of getting to know Ruth a bit better through one of our finds.
You may remember our 17th Century Seal Ring and Pipe Tamper that we discovered this year, well it’s been on a little bit of a journey! Ruth got in touch with us and very kindly offered to use our artefact to produce two beautiful pendants, immortalising the wax impression in bronze and sterling silver. So off it went, cleaned and carefully packaged down to Ruth's workshop to be given a new lease of life.
A wax impression is how this artefact would have been originally used, with the impression forming a signature for the gentleman of whom it belonged to. Every letter and important document that left his possession would bear this wax seal as his mark. Ruth uses the technique of Lost Wax Casting, an ancient craft that goes back at least 5, 000 years to create a tangible artefact in its own right, from this mark.
Greatly inspired by Ruth’s practice and how she brought our artefact back to life, renewed as a piece of jewellery that we can both now treasure, we decided to dive into what drives her passion and the connection between archaeology and art.
Every letter and important document that left his possession would bear the wax seal as his mark.
Roman Found: Thank you for agreeing to be our latest interviewee Ruth! We also can’t thank you enough for your wonderful work with our Pipe Tamper Seal Ring.
Ruth Leach: Not a problem! I am more than happy to answer a few questions. It’s my dream to find an intaglio of any kind whilst mudlarking so I loved working with yours it was really fun to do and they turned out fab!
RF: Can you start by telling us a little bit about ‘Studio Rua’ and how your craft is deeply connected with the act of ‘finding’?
RL: Studio Rua Is really an extension of my own love of jewellery (I have sold vintage and antique pieces for over 10 years now) and my love and fascination with ancient cultures and traditional craft. If there was a Venn diagram to illustrate it, It’d have antique jewellery, Ancient cultures, and British folklore mashed up, with Studio Rua somewhere in the middle! Finding is important to me as a designer, ‘finding’ in the sense of learning something new and also physically finding objects to inspire my work.
RF: Would you class yourself as a finder and have you always been compelled to find things?
RL: Oh always-I am always finding something or other, both to inform my work and in my personal life, well for my house anyway! I like nothing better than giving a new home to interesting objects found on walks or local car boot sales. The joy of seeing something special in otherwise overlooked or seemingly unremarkable things is something I always take pleasure in.
Finding can also be good for the brain-that total focus you have when searching for a particular stone, mudlarking that Tudor pin or researching a new area of interest is very mindful and rewarding.
RF: What do you think channels your fascination with history and folklore?
RL: Well I watch a lot of YouTube videos which definitely fuels it! But seriously though, I have always been fascinated with the unknown element of history, and that search for knowledge that inevitably ensues. That we will never definitively know what Stonehenge was built or used for, for example, is part of its appeal for me. There is magic in mystery. Folklore appeals to me because it is all about people. People trying to interpret and make sense of the world they lived in, at a time when nature dictated their everyday lives.
I think both are just storytelling really, it’s just different people telling history from those telling the stories found behind folk traditions and myths.
RF: How important are your finds to your creative process?
RL: The original hagstones I have moulds made of for my Hagstone necklaces were originally mudlarked from the River Thames and walks along the South Coast. Finds like that directly dictate my designs. I think taking objects out of their natural habitat and giving them new life as a piece of jewellery is a really interesting idea.
I always refer back to past found objects, both man made and natural when thinking about new work, they are always inspiring.
Folklore appeals to me because it is all about people. People trying to interpret and make sense of the world they lived in, at a time when nature dictated their everyday lives.
RF: How do you think these ancient objects can carry emotion, something that you manage to channel into your work?
RL: Visually I love the more naive look of ancient/folk art and how it was generally created by working people, it tells their stories and reflects how they understood and saw the world around them. My work is very much about the visibility of the maker, and I really think that you see that with folk art. Objects made by hand to me have a really appealing honesty-they transcend time I think. You can’t help but feel a connection to something made by someone else, whether it was made yesterday or 1000 years ago.
RF: Would you say jewellery (particularly ancient jewellery) is one of the most important artefacts to learning about our social past and history?
RL: Definitely! Jewellery of that period can give so much information about the wearer, their status and sex for example, and also the techniques and skill of the maker.
The recent discovery of an ornate necklace along with other important grave goods, reportedly belonging to an Anglo Saxon high ranking female, I am sure will be revealing its secrets and informing archaeologists for a long time yet.
RF: Why have you chosen lost wax casting as your medium? Is there something about this ancient craft that draws you?
RL: I love the tactile and immediate nature of the wax I use. Again it harks back to the idea of the visibility of the maker, I love that the wax captures echoes of my fingerprints and workings. It’s that human touch that connects people to jewellery made using this method that I find most satisfying.
The technique of Lost Wax Casting as you have said is one of the oldest methods of creating objects in metal, which also interests me. That I am still working in a way that ancient people would probably understand is a little bit of magic for me.
In the new year I will be joining a sand casting workshop at Butser Ancient Farm, where I’ll be learning how to cast a Torc in bronze using ancient techniques. I am hoping it will inspire me to try more direct casting techniques in my work in the future.
RF: Often we find objects from the past which are handmade and imperfect. Do you think this imperfection is an important part of human nature and expression and have we lost that with the mass manufacturing of today?
RL: Absolutely! For me that authenticity is key-there is no romance in perfection, or mass production. Any object made by hand has that centuries long line of craftspeople and skill behind it, which I find very appealing and somewhat comforting. I think that the element of human imperfection is how we are able to connect to objects from our past. Although many traditional skills are endangered now, there definitely does seem to be a more positive swing back to an appreciation and valuing of the handmade.
As humans beings I think we have to channel that need to express ourselves through making to be happy. I do anyway!
RF: How connected to the creative world do you think archaeology and the related historic hobbies like metal detecting and mudlarking are?
RL: There are definite overlaps I think - that curiosity of mind and fascination with the visual nature of found objects is something I think you see across all the above disciplines.
As someone working in a creative industry, I am equally fascinated and interested by a mudlarking find as I would be by an object in a museum. Everything has a visual nature which you want to explore and enjoy and there is also that irresistible backstory that can be researched into.
RF: How important do you think using these ancient artefacts and folk lores are as an inspiration for creativity? Is this a way of keeping the history alive?
RL: I think a number of small brands now are becoming inspired by and referencing ancient cultures and British folklore, and that is no bad thing. It is just a new generation discovering and interpreting in their own way.
The Harpole Treasure, reportedly belonging to an Anglo Saxon high ranking female.
Jewellery of that period can give so much information about the wearer, their status and sex for example, and also the techniques and skill of the maker.
RF: Being an archeologist was your dream, is that still your dream or do you feel like you’ve discovered something better in your craft and creativity?
RL:Oh it was for sure! I think I just got to an age where I realised I just wasn't very academic and went down the creative route instead. Although I’ll never be one, I can in some small way still channel my inner archaeologist with the odd (licensed of course) mudlark on the River Thames foreshore or when digging the soil in my allotment!
I think I am very lucky now with my creative practice in that I am able to incorporate some of my interests within my designs. I wouldn't say I have found something better, just that I have found my ‘thing’. That and I can always watch the Detectorists on repeat.
RF: Do you see your designs as future relics?
RL: Well I’d love to think so but who knows...I have thought to gift the River Thames a gold ring one day, set with a ‘Thames garnet’ like my Ex Thamesis design. The thought that a future mudlark may find it is rather fascinating! I know the jeweller Ruth Tomlinson has offered some rings made using Thames found objects in the past and this really appeals to me: the idea of creating future relics!
RF: Do you have any questions for us?
RL: What got you both into metal detecting? I always love finding out the reasons why hobbies are taken up in the first place.
RF: Great question! For us covid was the catalyst to our metal detecting obsession (because all great hobbies have to turn into an obsession don’t they!) We both found ourselves kind of stuck in Lincoln during Covid, Ellie brought up from her uni in Plymouth and Lucie trapped here from her travels away from New Zealand.
After several months of Covid, we experienced Lockdowns where restrictions were slightly lifted and hobbies such as metal detecting were allowed. Down in the dumps missing her Plymouth mudlarking days, Ellie’s mum Naomi suggested she tried metal detecting, ‘It’s just land mudlarking’ she insisted. We bet she wishes she never suggested it now two years down the line, having to endure all the mud and finds chat!
So that was it really, a metal detector got purchased and Lucie got involved immediately during the first dig in our Grandad’s back garden, we haven’t stopped searching since!
We’ve both always had an affinity for finding things, collecting and history and have found a lot of creative inspiration within this hobby. Roman Found became our digging creative output and was born almost immediately after we started making finds.
RL: Have you ever done a gold dance? Bucket list find?
RF: When we were lucky enough to find our gold (A Henry VII Half Angel) we experienced something more like gold paralysis. The shock of what was a dream find to us after such a drizzly and hard days digging almost removed our souls from our bodies.
Once the disbelief had cleared there was much shouting and maybe not quite a proper gold dance as such but to any onlookers we definitely must have looked like a right pair jumping and screaming in the rain in the middle of a field.
We think that our next bucket list find has got to be gold again, we can’t help it we have our greedy hearts set on a Gold Celtic Stater. We were lucky enough to find some debased units this year so there’s got to be one waiting out there for us!
RL: I hope you find it!
RF: Thank you Ruth! And once again it’s been a pleasure interviewing you, thank you for some fantastic answers and we look forward to seeing what comes out of the Studio Rua workshop next!
You can check out the beautiful work of Studio Rua on Instagram : @studio_rua
