What Does Porpe Mean?
People often ask where the name Porpe comes from.
The short answer is that it comes from an ancient Greek fastening pin. The longer answer is that ..I spent years thinking about an object that was practical, and also worth keeping, and eventually named my studio after it.
A porpe (πόρπη) was a pin or clasp used to fasten clothing in ancient Greece. The word comes from a verb meaning "to pierce" or "to drive through."
It was a simple object designed to solve a simple problem: how to hold cloth together.
What interests me is that someone still had to make it. Someone had to shape it, cast it, finish it, and decide what it would look like. Even an object created for a practical purpose carried the mark of its maker.
The porpe existed for centuries. Most were made of bronze. Some were silver or gold. One of the most famous appears in Homer's Odyssey. When Penelope tests the disguised Odysseus, she asks him to describe the clothing her husband wore when he left for Troy. Odysseus describes a gold porpe decorated with a hound holding a struggling fawn. Out of everything he could have remembered, he remembered the clasp.
That detail has always stayed with me.
Organic Statement Ring from the Metalworks Collection
Materials: Oxidize Sterling Silver with 24k Gold foil - keum boo.
I do not make reproductions of ancient Greek jewelry, but I spend my days doing things that would feel familiar to the people who made those objects: carving wax, casting metal, applying gold and transforming raw materials into something meant to be worn and kept.
That continuity is what drew me to the word.
Historically, a porpe was a fastening. Over time, I began thinking about it as a connector. A clasp brings separate pieces together and holds them in relationship to one another. That interpretation is my own, but it feels appropriate. Jewelry often does something similar, connecting materials, memories, makers, and wearers.
That is why I named the studio Porpe Artifacts.
The name came first.
The work is my answer to it.
Porpe Artifacts,
is a woman-owned jewelry studio in Bothell, WA. Sterling silver, 14k gold filled, and 24k gold keum-boo — all made by hand, one piece at a time. Explore the collections · About the studio
