Boing Boing Staging

Jewelry made from 19th century clay pipes washed up on the Thames


Today I found myself at a street-market in Soho (the one in London), at a stall belonging to Amelia Parker, a jewelry maker who salvages fragments of century-old clay pipes from the banks of the Thames. Clay pipes were once the equivalent of cigarettes, cheap, semi-disposable tobacco-distribution systems, and as they were very brittle, they were tossed out by the tens of thousands, forming a lightweight layer of river detritus that still washes up on the riverbanks in London.

Amelia Parker

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