The Family is back. After a long hiatus, the spotlight is back on it, and it comes in the form of jewellery design. This is a story of how one man’s family inspires his art.
I am not a jewelry designer by profession. What I do is I make gifts for my family. This is my hobby.
I draw inspiration from my love for my wife Viviana, and then later, for our two daughters Sabina and Sonja. We all share a fascination for design, art and jewelry. The ones I make are designed especially for them. Many years ago, I designed a logo of our initials SVB, which eventually became the family crest and is visible in most, if not all, of the pieces.
I don’t believe in putting monetary value on anything that was made with such love. Because of this, I don’t sell the pieces I’ve made. There is no price for the sentimental value of anything; it is something that remains after the person who made it has left the world. There is always a story behind a piece, how and why it was made, what were the events that transpired while it was being made.
I have a ring that has the family crest on it, and on the inside, there is a hidden message, an inscription that would only be revealed after I’m gone. My daughters know how to open it with a tiny screw. But they should definitely not be opened while I’m still around.
The design process is long. I get ideas from dreams, sometimes from my thoughts. Once the idea is established, I make some draft sketches. These take long, about 3 or 4 days, sometimes weeks, months or maybe even a whole year. From this sketch I produce a prototype, after which I make the first model.
The materials I use are available in Jeddah as much as it is all over the world. I like to use materials that last long. I work with silver, brass, copper and cold. I also use steel and aluminum, but not frequently as they don’t last for very long.
Cutting the metal is painstaking procedure. Sometimes it’s easy to cut through the metal. Most of the time, even after the first model, so many changes and adjustments need to be made. For instance, one of the rings already had the stones set, and I still had to make some modifications. I had to adjust the stone settings as well as everything else about it to adjust it to the correct size.
I use many different precious stones; turquoise, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, lapis lazuli, onyx, and diamonds. However, I don’t mix the stones with the diamonds. These are all available here as much as anywhere in the world, but most of the ones I’ve used were imported from Burma, Thailand, Tanzania, South Africa and Afghanistan.
My daughter Sonja gives me feedback once the piece of jewelry is done. Sometimes she comes back to me with a new idea for a modification, and I make some changes. Sometimes, when I’m not satisfied still, I change it back to my original idea.
By now, you may have noticed the skull emblem present in most of the pieces, almost as much as the family crest. This skull symbolizes Death, how it is all around us. I incorporate it into the pieces as a reminder that life is very short, and that we should do things that are worth our while. It’s not a negative symbol, rather, it’s there to encourage us to make most of the time we have left. Everything in this world is temporary; try to do as much good as you can, and prepare yourself for the afterlife. It’s a reminder to keep people grounded no matter home they possess.