SILVIA FURMANOVICH

Family Jewels

Her great-grandfather worked as a goldsmith in Tuscany. Her father, too, was a goldsmith as well as a jeweller in her native São Paulo, so it seemed that Silvia Furmanovich was destined to work with jewellery. But the Brazilian designer came to it later than may have been expected. “I spent 20 years doing something completely unrelated. I studied advertising, and worked with aromatherapy and essential oils, nothing to do with jewellery,” she says. Then, in the 1990s, Furmanovich took up goldsmithing as a hobby and was quickly hooked, rediscovering her roots and links with her heritage. “The moment I touched that melted gold, I felt a strong connection to my father, who’d passed away when I was 17,” she says. “It was quite extraordinary. I’d never really valued the craft until then.” That hobby turned into a business when her best friends spotted on her wrist a porcelain bead bracelet she had fastened with beautiful gold clasps and wanted the same. Today, Furmanovich has made a name for herself among connoisseurs who appreciate her ability to ennoble materials such as wood and bamboo with the use of craftsmanship techniques such as marquetry, miniature painting and knot-weaving to create wearable works of art that stand out for their uniqueness.

Is there a common thread among your collections?

Flowers, nature, the use of wood and craftsmanship. Over time, the collections have evolved, but they always reference one another. Everything repeats in a new way. For example, even today, I still always

have a few pieces that use porcelain beads, because they remain very special to me. I also often use seashells because they were the first things I learned to do in silver.

How did you develop your signature wood marquetry jewellery?

Five years ago, I met an artisan who creates huge wooden screens representing the Amazon forest in marquetry, using salvaged wood. He’s quite well known in Brazil and I actually pursued him to the jungles of Acre, where he lives, which was a real expedition because I had to take two planes, a car and a boat. I had to convince him to make the pieces for my jewellery collections and it was a challenge to create pieces on such a small scale, but today, he has about 25 apprentices who are learning the techniques. Last year, our designs evolved from flat-surface marquetry to a more 3D version, which was another big challenge. But the collection has proven a big success, particularly in the US.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Everything comes from either a trip I’ve done abroad, or from the specific material or stones I’m interested in working with. I’ve done an entire collection with Brazilian opal after I discovered a little-known mine that has the most beautiful milky opals.

There are quite a few Japanese influences in your jewellery...

I used to visit antique shops in New York and Europe, and I would often see these tiny, carved button-like ornaments known as netsuke (once worn in Japan to suspend articles from the sash of a kimono). I used to think that they’re so small, they’d get lost in the house! Then I thought, why not use them to create a piece of jewellery? I ended up buying a Brazilian collector’s entire collection of small animal netsuke; I did a lot of rings and bracelets, and still create some pieces with those. I’ve also been to Japan several times to study Japanese craftsmanship, which I find fascinating. The first time, in 2012, I went to Wajima, known for its lacquerware. It’s a fishermen’s place, but you push back a curtain and there’s this amazing atelier selling a teapot for US$10,000. I did a small collection inspired by fragments I bought from that place. I was in Japan again three months ago and one of my next collections will be based on ceramics, which I’ve now been researching for some time. I’ve also met this young lady who creates knots out of bamboo that she first lets dry for three years. She cuts the bamboo very thinly to create her pieces and frankly, with the amount of patience, work and skill involved, I think it’s more valuable than diamonds or gold! I’ve bought a few pieces from her, which I’m adding to one of my next collections.

Why do you continue to seek out new craftsmanship?

I like change, and I like the research process. In 2016, I went to a small exhibition of Indian miniature paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; you had to use a magnifying glass to see the detail and I was very impressed. I did some research and found an art school in Udaipur that’s preserving this ancient technique. I visited, and saw artisans painting with brushes made with camel eyelashes or squirrel tails, using natural pigments from stones such as malachite and lapis lazuli. Now, I’m working with them to create jewellery with miniature paintings on slivers of camel bone.