Gabriel Urist

Fine Jewelry and Conversations On Combination

When it comes to knowing about ourselves (and about each other’s selves), whether we lean in with contemplation, or lean away with avoidance, our relationship to the ethical values and ideals that define us at our core inevitably shape how we live with each other (and with ourselves). This truth, as it is lived out at both the personal and political level, sits at the heart of Lost Tribes.

The LOST TRIBES COLLECTION invites you to lean in contemplatively, in an attempt to playfully capture ones’ characteristic spiritual/ethical signature, represented in metal.

The inspiration for the Periodic Table sits at the interface between Jewish ethical text (Pirkei Avot) and Native North American pictographic storytelling . Yeah. I know. I can honestly say, ethically speaking, that I feel humble and deeply respectful of each of these sets of roots as I’ve tried to work this project to its current state. As I’ve come to see it, while radically different, both systems share common ground. As ancient sources of knowledge and truth, they each present an ethical frame for everyday life, and help define our place on this planet. In attempting a blending of these two sources, I do so from having lived and grown up for better or worse within one of these two worlds, and not the other. I cannot claim to even begin to do justice to the richness of either. At the same time, I do hope to convey deep respect for both, as locations of wisdom and truth. I approach Pirkei Avot as holding a particular place within the vast breadth of Jewish text. I draw upon its particular emphasis outside the setting out of a system of Jewish laws, and instead through its focus on the ethics of everyday life; how to live with each other, with ourselves, and within all of creation, of which each of us is a part. 

I have similarly come to understand and appreciate both essential differences, but also deep resonances between the realm of Pirkei Avot and the visual/spiritual realm of Native American storytelling, and its iconic system of pictographic elements (especially as they relate symbolically to the story of creation).  This rich iconic visual realm and its resonances within the ethical realm of existence seen across time and culture speaks aesthetically to me and to our current search for a way to frame the way. 

click here to go to the ethical navigation systems of Lost Tribes