About
Est Melbourne 2013
HBJ was born as a rejection of mass-produced catalogue jewellery. Creating pieces that could be worn through the chaos, kept for life, and passed on. Jewellery built for people who wear their values, not their outfits.
Hand carved in wax and cast in sterling silver from a small studio in Northern NSW. Each piece is made once, made slowly — and built to outlast the person who buys it.
We work slowly, by hand, in a small studio. Not to be precious — but because the work demands it. These are not accessories. They are objects that accumulate significance over time.
There is a language older than words — written in rings, worn on skin, passed through bloodlines. Hollow Bones exists at the intersection of craft and meaning: each piece begins as a thought, becomes wax, becomes metal, becomes yours.
.925 sterling. No Compromise on quality. Ever. Silver that ages like leather — darker, richer, more yours with time.
Buy slowly. Keep forever.
The Maker
Craft as a form of listening.
Willem Asher Payten has been working with silver since 2013 — first in Melbourne, now from a studio in the Northern Rivers of NSW. Every piece begins with wax: carved slowly, held up to light, revised until the form says what it needs to say.
The influences are quiet ones. Alchemy diagrams. Tidal movement. The worn-down geometry of old coins. Things that accumulate meaning through time rather than declaring it.
Hugh Payten Smith — Willem’s cousin — has been part of the studio since the beginning. He’s now on the bench full-time, running the studio day-to-day and building the brand forward.
The Process
Every design starts as carved wax.
The hand is preserved in the metal — slight, intentional, unrepeatable.
Wax → Sprue → Investment → Burnout → Pour → Quench → Finish.
Each casting is a single event. No two pours are identical.
This is lost wax casting. It is one of the oldest metalworking techniques on earth. The same process jewellers have used for thousands of years, and the same process we use now. It cannot be sped up without being ruined.
HBJ uses it because nothing else produces the same result.
The Model
Limited releases. 13 cast per lunar cycle. Dropped on the New Moon.
We don’t keep stock. We make what we sell. We wear what we make. Worth the wait. Every time.
Made by people who wear it.