The story of jewelry.

I had a chance to interview a very special person – a traveler, a gypsy, jewery designer, film maker, journalist, an artist – Radovan Sredić who I first met couple of years ago at a chairty event helping provide clean drining water to third world countries. This is Radovan’s jewery story..in his own words...

Jewelry has been present as a symbol of individuality since ancient cultures and still is today. It has been worn by men and women for different reasons, men use to wear it for protection while hunting, women and men also used to wear it to showcase their role or social status but one characteristic still remains today – it continues to showcase wearer’s personality traits.

During the last 30ish years I have worn out literary hundreds of pairs of shoes, car tires, wondered around and explored on foot, on a bike, on airplanes and various other means of transportation through the dusty and thread bared roads, vast wild forests…all with one goal – to film a documentary in its full reality…from Asia to Africa to far coasts of South America.

Encounters with different civilizations and cultures have left a permanent trace in my emotions which I now express via making of unique jewelry pieces out of exotic materials which I have collected during my travels.

As an honest thief I was taking mental photos of rustic forms which I was grasping during my travels, and I have decided to use this authentic raw materials collected to make my jewelry, while the form and design are products of my dreams, my feelings and my imagination.

EXOTIC MATERIALS

It takes courage to design and make jewelry…I remember finding seashells on the beaches of pacific islands which were shaped so beautifully with perfectly color tones like God himself hand crafted them. Devilfish skin from South Chinese Sea is rather unusually structured and in combination with silver it can be shaped into various jewelry forms. I use it to make rings, bracelets, pendants, earrings and necklaces.

My rings most popular with men, I make out of shark skin which I collected in Jar. I have redesigned and decorated glass beads from Namibia with gold and silver to express a feeling of African wilderness and arrogance.

Black corals from Tahiti and Borneo are my absolutely favorite material to work with! They are extravagant, expensive, rudely gorgeous and extremely rare to find. Black coral for me represents a white swan of the jewelry world.

Horn of water buffalo from Cambodia is another rare piece of wild material together with mammoth tooth which I use to make my jewelry. While ebony wood from Mauritius provides a glimpse of mystery to my jewelry pieces, weaver of Mexican hedgehog I use for summer jewelry although they do not look to coastal.

GEMSTONE STORY 

Lapis lazuli is a metamorphic rock from Afghanistan, it contains gold in its natural form and it is deep dark blue in color – reminding me of an eye color of mysterious women who were curiously peeking at me in the mountains of Kaybera – at the very crossroad of Chinese, Afghanistan and Russian border.

Rare banana green turquoise brought from Mongolia looks amazing when combined with silver and gold.

Roza Jaspis from India is very rare, used to make a grave stone of Jaji Singa II 1823. In the Pink City – Jajpur.  It reminiscent of softness of scented powder from the theater.

Just like the grapes frozen in the fall – unusually looking are the million years old amorist - fossils of corals from Madagascar.

Roman glass – the leftovers of powerful civilization, small archeological pieces put together harmoniously into a piece of jewelry or prehistoric ceramics shaped manually - again put together into a piece of decor called jewelry.

When I think back of all the places I have explored during my travels, maybe my favorite were the women in India – always symbolically, colorfully and meaningfully decorated. Women in Bali I actually liked even better because their jewelry is more connected to nature and Gods in its color and shape.

No, no, actually – the most dazzling looking is the jewelry on Namibian women and dark skin beauties of Ghana. Ah, I cannot forget the Caribbean ladies decorated richly with various seashells. In the heart of the jungle where trees die of natural causes and where tribe of head – hunters (literary) lives – these are the best memories.

I will never be able to decide at which part of the world the jewelry is most prominent! Just the other day in Israel I have met a girl wearing a piece of thin rope with regular beach stone hanging of it – I took a picture of it and thought to myself – this is the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen!

As I traveled so much, I have seen wars, excruciating pain and death… so making beautiful jewelry since the end of the last decade helped me purify my soul from all the bad things I have seen and witnessed while keeping the memory of all the splendors which will stay in my remembrance forever.

So for the last 26 summers at my art gallery "Mr.Fantasy" and studio at Rovinj, Croatia I take time to dream, reminisce and create my travel diary – one jewelry piece at a time. Please don't take me and my job to seriously – it is all a game which has no end.

A proud owner of my bronze and silver collection is princess Nimani of Oman, rings made of Lapis owns Leny Kravitz, bracelet made of python skin wears Bono Vox  and many many other artists around the world have requested to buy a page of my travel diary, a piece of my memory.

Designer contacts: facebook & email.

Gallery address:Grisia 48, Rovinj

Website: www.radovanart.com 

"The jeweler allows me to wear the sapphire blue lake on my finger, the emerald green leaves around my neck, and take the citrine sunset with me wherever I go.  

Jewelry has become my daytime link to nature in an office with no windows.  

And if I have to work late, there's nothing like diamond stars and a pearl full moon against an onyx night sky."  

~Astrid Alauda, "Office With No Windows"~