Jeevan Collection Collaborative project with Jeevan School Foundation Vanarasi

Jeevan Collection Collaborative project with

Jeevan School Foundation Vanarasi

This project was born from the desire to share my passion for jewellery and creativity with an amazing and beautiful bunch of young adults I met through Jeevan School Foundation that shelters and educates vulnerable children in Varanasi. During my numerous stays since 2006, I had the chance to see them grow safe, to study and develop their full potential.

During 1 month, despite the Ganga river flood transforming the school in a swimming pool for a week, we have developed exciting jewellery collections that has been exhibited in a fair-trade café-shop in the holy city and are now for sell online. The whole collection is now display in At Work Gallery, London.

Half of the selling price will be given to Jeevan School Foundation.

Handmade process

Conception

Children has to respond to a given theme to develop their jewellery collection:

Create a jewellery piece/s that illlustrates something which makes you feel

good, and that you want to share with others.

Researching / Designing

To respond to that brief, we have carried out an intensive design process,

collecting references and sharing thoughts. Students have searched ideas

by gathering images found in books and online to create mood-boards.

Discussions about fulfilling experiences in their daily life lead to amazing

designs that were developed in jewellery pieces, using the etching and

photo etching techniques.

Making

Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal to create a design in relief. The drawings produced by the children were transferred on metal using different methods and resists such as a varnish or printed designs on PNP paper. The pieces of metal were deep in Ferric Chloride.for 3 hours.

Once the designs has been etched, the children have learned piercing, filing, soldering and finishing techniques to complete their pieces, piercing the outside shapes, connecting post earrings, sanding and polishing them.

They finally chose among a range of precious stones to enhance the designs that will be later properly set in Jaipur by a professional stone setter.

Exhibiting in India

At the end of the month, the jewellery collections were exhibited for few days at Open Hand Café, a fair trade café- shop in Varanasi where globe trotters, students, social workers meet and chat around refreshing Iced Coffee.

Stone setting / Finishing

I collaborated with a stone setter in Jaipur, the city of precious gemstones, to set the stones. This practice is another area of expertise in jewellery making, and I was never properly trained. The result was outstanding. The pieces were finally 18 Karat yellow gold plated in London at Eliot Fitzpatrick LTD in Farringdon. The result was again above my expectation!