Connection
Museums are tantalising places. You may look at objects that might transport you to places you dare not dream of, a magical universe of splendor and history, but! you may not touch!
When I make jewelry for this shop, I may hold the most awesome beads in my hands. They are many lifetimes old and they have incredible and uncountable stories.
They were worn by brides on their weddingday. They were given to a child at birth. They adorned a king. They were offered to an ancestor, a spirit, a god, a river. They were worn around the throat to avert evil, and on the heart to attract fortune.
They bought gold, ivory, palm oil and slaves. They were buried with their owners. They were lost on the ground and left alone, because it would bring bad luck to pick them up. Sand covered them and hundreds of years later they were dug up, glistening with minerals.
They tell stories of wealth and beauty, of fear and trust, gain and loss, awe and devotion, friendship and war, joy and gratitude, life and death.
They were arranged in patterns on the bodies of warriors, the bags of hunters, in the hair of maidens. Sometimes the patterns had a meaning that only a married couple could tell, or a family or a village.
They were produced with methods that were anxiously kept secret: the bead makers of the Islands of Murano were forbidden to leave the Venetian Republic. Of course they did anyway and so the beads also tell about the Dutch. And later in time about inventive Frenchmen, Czechs and Germans. And back in time: about the bead makers of the Islamic era, the Roman and Egyptian Empires, the Indus Valley, up to those of Neolithic men.
Their stories are endless. We can weave them onto a string and wear them and compose new ones, endlessly. It is all about connection. One bead with the other, one life with another.
Life is a jewel.
I guess that is the story of this shop. I am completely in love with this jewel.
I am very happy to share this love with you.
Instagram: @lets_embracelets
