Never in a million years did I think I would write the following; I am fascinated by gold!
I really am - now! And I really was not when I was younger. Back then I was a silver girl. I loved the grey dull and shiny color, and I didn’t feel attracted to the golden yellow color. Until I understood the difference between the metals and its rarity.
Did you know that there is only 9800 m3 gold on the world as we know it. And that there is estimated to only be 3892 m3 left in the core of our earth. To give you a rough idea of what 9800 m3 is, that is only about 4 olympic size swimming pools filled up to the top. And of that 9800 m3 only half is used for jewelry. The other half is used for coins, in technology and the rest is stacked as bars in secured banks around the world.
I think that this visualises a bit better why gold is so expensive, and also why people invest in gold. It is a natural material and there is only a limited amount available in this world. It will run out at some point in time.
Did you know that almost all gold we use in the jewelry industry is recycled? The suppliers here in the Netherlands, where I buy my precious material from, only use 100% recycled gold. This gold comes mainly from ‘waste’ gold that has been brought back into the supply chain. And how romantic the recycling of gold may sound, it also could mean that the gold you wear around your finger was once part of an Aztic goddes’s necklace, or used to cover the piramides of Gaze. We don’t know what road our gold has traveled, making it all the more mysterious and sacred. The metal literally carries all those memories within its existence.
How special and intriguing is it that I as an artist can create something meaningful to you, using the ancient gold in the world that has been around and used throughout the history of mankind.
Next time when you have a swim think about the gold in the world, and treasure the gold you own. Whether it is your wedding ring or that beautiful ring from your grade grandmother (That doesn’t suit your style, but you think about once in a while, knowing it is safely hidden in that little treasure box) Who knows where the gold has been making that jewel only a 100 years ago, think of where that gold might came from. How did it end up in your country?
Where I live, in the Netherlands we don’t have a gold mine. But we do have a lot of gold and jewels? Oh, right…. once there was the VOC, and the slavery and all that history my little country made in the last couple of 100 years. But before that? Where was the gold before it ended up in one of those ships? If only we could trace down and listen to the stories the gold captures…
Never take the gold you own for granted!