A Family Affair.

The friends of this travel-loving couple asked me to mark their fifth wedding anniversary with an Ode to their life together. I made them a family crest.

The base is Black Taurus marble, chosen for the same reason I return to it often: it looks like the earth seen from the moon, grounding the work in something larger than the personal. From that foundation rises a Pilot Fineliner, the pen that started Custom Ode, connecting their story to the origin of the practice.

Out of the pen grows crossed cutlery: a fork and a knife. He is a chef, they own nine restaurants together, and the crossing references both their professional world and their dynamic as a couple. Opposites that strengthen each other.

The arithmetic is embedded in the object. The fork has four tines, the knife one blade: five, for five family members and five years of marriage. Those same five points stand for the elements that make their relationship work: work, travel, party, family, and love. The large heart at the center acknowledges that they can be fiery, sharp-tongued, and fierce, and that love holds it all together anyway.

Black Taurus marble, Pilot Fineliner, steel. 35 x 21 x 3 cm.