"I have spent twenty years looking after other people's gold. This is the first piece I have owned."
At her bench, the museum
A Wednesday in September, late afternoon
A pale London grey. Even, gentle
The lab is on the third floor, behind two locked doors and a temperature gauge. Hana is gloved, then ungloved, then gloved again — the way a surgeon is. She is examining a Roman fibula when we arrive, with a loupe so old it has someone else's initials on it. The pendant is around her neck, beneath the lab coat, and only flashes when she leans forward to lift the next object out of its tray.
The Flora Pendant, in raking light
"It is unembarrassed about being made. The marks of the hand are visible. I wanted to wear something that I could read."
—Hana Achebe
She lets us look through the loupe. The object underneath is two thousand years old; the marks on its surface are the marks of a hand that died, almost certainly, by violence, in the second century. "The maker is right here," she says, tapping the glass. "Always." Later, she shows us the pendant. The marks are different — gentler, more recent — but they are also the marks of a maker, and they are also visible.
Her loupe, her gloves, and a Roman fibula awaiting cleaning
The conversation
Q.
Why this piece, and why now?
HA.
Because it is unembarrassed about being made. The marks of the hand are visible.
Q.
What do you notice that others might not?
HA.
The seam where it was joined. The small unevenness at the back. These are the signatures of the maker. They are also, in a way, the signatures of me — because I will add my own wear, over time.
Q.
Advice for the next person?
HA.
Wear it. Do not save it for the occasion. The occasion is now.
That day — Hanahad with her
Wearing
A white cotton lab coat, two sizes too large
Drinking
Earl Grey, gone cold, in a chipped mug
Reading
A 1971 conservation manual she has annotated for two decades
Playing
BBC Radio 3, faintly
On the bench
A loupe. A fibula. A pair of cotton gloves, folded.
"Eighteen karat, well cast, well finished. It will outlast me."
We sign out at the second door. The pendant disappears beneath her coat as she turns back to the bench, the fibula, and the long, patient quiet of her afternoon. We close the door softly behind us. She has already forgotten that we were there.
— In conversation with Hana Achebe , London, UK.
She wears
Molten Ore Ring
Other features
Yuki Mori
Kyoto, Japan · Ceramicist
Aurélien Cassen
Brooklyn, NY · Film editor
Hana Achebe
London, UK · Jewellery conservator
Léonor de Sá
Lisbon, Portugal · Poet & translator