PEARLS BIJOUX

INTERVIEW with April Rentzsch, founder & indie designer for Pearls Bijoux.

_Where do you live? 

I live in Lombard, Illinois.  It is 30 miles west of Chicago, one of the greatest cities.  There is so much to do here from much fine dining to major league sports (Chicago Black Hawks won Stanley Cup this year, Bears nearly in the Super Bowl).  Many museums, great shopping.  Rollerblading on shores of Lake Michigan, great fun, great people watching.  The list is endless.

The Chicago winters are brutal.  Just had a 23 inch snowfall with peak drifts up to 5 feet in places.  Summer is much more enchanting with all the parks, summer festivals, art fares and such.  Lake Michigan is a great place for people watching and just hanging out.

_Inspired by?

From within.  I love to create and I have always been involved in artistic pursuits.  My mind is tossing around new designs all the time.  I love to day dream.  There is so much room in the world for the mind to roam.

_What's the message that you want to communicate?

I have a saying that I add to my jewelry making.  

Define yourself, wear beautiful artisan jewelry.  Women like pretty things and to accessorize.  

I love to see them wear works of art.  Jewelry is such a personal choice and can really make a statement.  I love statement pieces.  That is why I make one of a kind and occasionally limited edition items.

_Recycle or Re-used, Vintage or eco-friendly?

I do reuse every materials I can.  I do not waste my raw materials.  So many wonderful items can be made from small bits of material left from a bigger project.

I love creating jewelry from vintage buttons.  Each button has its own personality and they are fun to create.  I have recently started using nickel.  It cleans up nice and is a reasonably priced alternative to sterling silver.  Pearls are another one of my favorite materials. 

I think a simple strand of pearls that are hand knotted with a sterling or gold fill clasp make a timeless piece of jewelry.

_You typical day?

I think jewelry very much throughout my day, go to sleep many nights designing a piece in my head that I work on the next day.  

I spend hours in the studio looking at materials,  putting one with the other and just "playing " until I get what I like.  I pay much attention to detail and my pieces must be quality crafted and solid in their construction.

_What is creativity inside you?

Creativity is a state of mind.  Sometimes macabre and sinister, sometimes lighthearted and optimistic. Sometimes nothing at all.  

ROOM OF YOUR OWN

Pnina Goldberg, founder & independent designer for Room of Your Own, lives in Jerusalem with her husband, two kids and two dogs, in a very old  and special house that stands on a top of a hill. You can see the amazing view of the old and the new city of Jerusalem.

She was always very creative, she used to create craft, renovate old or antique furniture, knitting, sewing and designing jewelry as a hobby and as a giveaway to her family and friends. 

At the last few years, she starts marketing my stuff, lately she joined Etsy and opened her shop Room of Your Own. A whole new world of creation was discovered to her.

Etsy has changed her life in a way. It has given me a way to change her fun hobby into a small business. She also becomes a great Etsy buyer, finding and buying really unique and beautiful items from other shops all the time.
Buying handmade was always very important. She knows the love and care that she put into my handmade items.
She thinks that Etsy is a great place for small designers like herself. It gives us an opportunity to expose our creation to a lot of people from all over the world. She loves the fact that it feels like a community, and that everyone is trying to help and promote each other.

She really loves old, antique and vintage things. When she is looking for something to inspire her, she usually go to flea markets or farm markets and vintage stores. 

She also gets inspired by watching old or even new movies.

What kind of jewelry other women are wearing. But mostly the materials that inspire her: there are ones that stick out that she falls in love with. 

She uses her "inspiration" beads to start designing a piece that's in her head. She often has an idea and it won't leave me alone until I produce it.
Room of Your Own is a great way to show her work, to spread the word about her new creations.
She is dreaming that one day it will become her full time job. It gives her a great pleasure and happiness to know that, somewhere, on this big planet, there are women that are wearing her jewelry design, making them happy and feeling good as well.

LUNA SOLIS CLOTHING_ Bohemian/gypsy/vintage style limited edition & one-off handmade clothing and accessories

Australia. Zyanya Walker, founder and designer for Luna Solis Clothing, lives  about one hour drive north of Sydney in a place called the Central Coast.

She has her own house which she bought recently with her boyfriend. They love it here. There is a nature reserve behind them, so there is always a lot of beautiful birds singing all day. Also they are very close to the beach.

Her biggest source of inspiration is anything vintage. 

Zyanya loves the 1920s, 30s and 40s so much. She said "I wish I could have lived in those decades."

Everything seemed so much more refined back then, the houses, the cars, the jewelery, the clothing were so beautiful.

People put a lot of thought into what they created. 

She is also very inspired by the gypsy life, living as a nomadic free spirit. 

She tries to incorporate these things into what she creates. 

But also the sacred geometry, trees, water, nature in general, 1930s freak shows, old fashioned circus life, fortune tellers, the subconsciousness, eloping, memory, time travel, magic, things that are sacred and treasured, sleeping and dreaming, the unknown.

All garments and accessories are handmade. 

Where possible, she uses recycled fabrics, buttons, lace, zippers etc. 

This keeps the garments affordable and is kind to our beautiful earth. 

If their fabrics are not recycled or vintage, they come from places that are selling liquidated stock. Everything she creates is extremely unique and limited. She thinks it is nice for people to own special accessories and clothing that no one else owns.

Her creative process is still being discovered. She's still so new at creating a range of clothing and accessories that she is learning what best works for her. 

Generally she keeps her eyes open all the time for inspiration through blogs, magazines and people on the street. 

She sketches her ideas and go from there. There is always a lot of change happening with her ideas, always an ongoing ever moving process.

"Creativity to me is my life force". 

Without it she thinks she would shrivell up and dry out! 

Everyone needs it, and everyone has it, just not everyone realizes it which is a shame. 

Zyanya loves to be able to teach people that creativity is inside all of us, it just comes in many different forms. 

Life is about creating our own perfect existence. 

Being creative makes happy, whenever she is feeling down. 

Creativity isn't just about art or craft or cooking. 

It's about inventing new ways of doing things, constantly improving ourselves.

Zyanya Walker is also a photographer: when she likes how light falls on something, she photographs it, right away. Thoughts, Creations and inspiration. Follow her blog!

FRESHY FIG_ Fashionable Green Jewelry

Green, Green, Green! 

Amanda is the designer of Freshy Fig, a collection of earrings and necklaces, based in Portland, Oregon.

Now it is currently available at three boutique: Soho, Moxie andFrumoasa Boutique.
New and re-purposed vintage: Amanda and her boyfriend try to recycle the quality of antique pieces, which otherwise would lie covered with dust. 

Many of her creations are unique in their kind and environmentally sustainable.

Each time, Amanda also recycles the packaging of previous expeditions.
A zero impact purchase.

Four things inspire Freshy Fig: the layering of clothes and jewelry Simultaneously,mixing metals, the idea of extracting modern looks from vintage pieces, and lockets.
The most beautiful part of the process of creation is, for Amanda, the ability to collectand re-establish consistently wonderful antiques.
You must resist the strong temptation to keep the creations for herself.
Owls, leaves, keys, beads, butterflies, doves, hearts, pictures for the jewelry!
Amanda is in continuous state of creativity.

Re- find, Re- Use, Re- Love it!

ODETTE NY_ Creative Wax

Jennifer Sarkilahti for  Odette NY: jewelry inspired by organic forms and industrial materials, natural, ancient artifacts and memorabilia.

Wax, ancient and modern techniques of carving and processing by hand.

Each design begins with a pencil sketch, which is accurately reproduced in wax as a small sculpture, only to be thrown into the metal.

Born in Virginia, Jennifer designs her handcrafts  product in New York, in her studio in Brooklyn.  

ODETTE NY combines the sensitivity of art and the evolving of fashion.
Traveling to far away places, art, walking through the woods, looking at an historical images collection, browsing through old books.

Wax and metal. Silver and gold, even non-precious metals such as bronze and brass.  

Jennifer is interested in the patina that develops over time.
Working with wax is like a sculpture. Each design has its own mold, where the jewels are replicated and then solidified.

Sometimes Jennifer prefers the freedom to create any designs. But others, it's nice to develop and explore a theme.

Bullet hole, animals, nature, circles, petit, sea: Odette NY collections. 

The last is based on the Scandinavian mountains, cutting out several variations of peaks to the right shape.

Jennifer does not want to communicate something specific: she just wants to create something beautiful, interesting, unique, authentic. 

The craftsmanship and the selection of her works move away from what the designer said.

A classic style, a bohemian flair.  

The distinctive sign of Odette NY is a biological aestethics.
Her creativity is something that is impossible to separate by, as a guiding force.  

The expression of what she sees and what she is able to shape with herhands.

MISMA_ A full time Creativity

"My name is María I am 40 years old.
I studied jewelry and handbags designs.
I am happy with the simple things of life.
I love: Walking with no direction, Movies, Music concerts, Astrology and Metaphysics.
One of my dreams: I want that my clutches will be the complements for an elegant and femininity imagen.
I will like that my shop Misma Clutch will be well known in the world.

The Romanticism. sophistication, elegance, romanticism and femininity.

My day start at 5:30am: I go infront of the see to practice Tai Chi until 7:30am, then I come home for start working, I check my mail and if I have sales I prepare the orders for send.
Also constantly I prepare my fabrics for sew and when clutches are ready I take pictures for list on Etsy-
And for close my day I go out for walk.
On saturday night I like to go to the movie, theater or some music concert. "

Maria for Misma Clutch