Ode to Siyamend

My paternal grandfather was martyred before my father turned 9 years old so I never met him in the physical, but I did grow up around his presence, he was always a legend and a hero to us. Looking through my father’s family photos as a child was always what felt like an event to me, like every time we got to go through it felt like magic. As an adult, I can pull that album out whenever I want at my parents home, but it still feels like a special event when I go through it.

I’ve received questions about using the lira coin in a lot of my pieces and I want to explain the symbolism behind this here, the symbolism for me. About 12 years ago we met my father’s sister for the very first time, my aunt Sayran, my namesake. She brought letters of correspondence between my father’s parents before he had been killed (my most treasured possessions I have and will ever have) and a gold bangle with 7 lira coins dangling from it. My grandfather, Siyamend had purchased that piece of gold in the 1940s or 1950s and my family, my father included met this piece of gold in 2008. Of course it has stood the test of time, gold does that, but it was one of those moments that leave you speechless, a man that all of us in that room really never got to know because he was taken too soon being face to face with a piece of gold he had chosen for my grandmother. Anyways, my aunt Sayran took the lira coins off the bangle one by one and all my grandfather’s grand daughters received a coin to carry with them. My sisters and I, my uncle’s 3 daughters, and my aunt Sayran’s daughter. I wear that chain nearly every time I put on jewelry, when I need to remember my strength, when I miss a man I never got to know in the flesh, when I’m happy or when I’m sad, when I need some luck, when I feel gratitude. It’s my favorite piece of jewelry because of what it means.

This necklace is an ode to him. In the photo of the two chains on top of the daffodils, is the two of them side by side. I tried to create an almost identical version of my favorite chain of all time.

18k gold plated brass snake chain/hardware. Gold plated lira coin. 19inch chain with extension.

Handcrafted with love in Texas during the Fall(Payiz)/Winter(Zistanê) of 2020.