Behold a jewelry piece by Katarina Tarazi, its whimsical design set in motion, let it answer the questions of your soul, let the charm operate. The jeweler and storyteller took us on a deep peregrination of the soul…
Each jewel carries a fictional story unravelled by Katarina’s imagination, taking us to multiple historical periods. The Marguerite, spun into necklaces, rings and bracelets, is about a love quest. Katarina imagines a mad scientist back in the early 1820s at the crossing of the Industrial Revolution and Romanticism, a duality between machines and written feelings spread through the masses with printing press. His lover is the keeper of the Marguerite, asking at any moment how much he loves her; “un peu’, “beaucoup”, “a la folie”. This is how Katarina conceives her jewelry, with a moving mechanism answering the questions of the soul. Inspired by steampunk aesthetics - science-fiction set in the Victorian Era - she created “useless” mechanics that turn into a fetish; like the Tarocchi, an intricate piece. ‘The first Tarot deck was commissioned by the Duke of Milan during the Italian Renaissance.’ The tarot game comprises 22 major Arcanas, each symbolizing a phase in life. The card direction, upright or reversed, is another variable. With two independently spinning disks on the Tarocchi pendant, the challenge was to create a piece representing the card and its direction. Where the two discs meet under the dagger handle, you can read the answer to your question. Another piece carefully crafted to soothe the wanderings of the mind, the Sole Luna coin, part of the Renaissance (Renatus) collection, is a pendant with two opposing sides, the sun and the moon. These sides represent two divergent tarot cards. ‘It took time to get the odds right, a 50/50 percent for the coin to flip on either side. I’ve had to get back to the drawing board multiple times, adjusting the topography of the coin and equal gold distribution across the piece.’ Her Zodiac Collection is also the result of years of research, taking astrology back to its Ancient Egyptian origins, found on the ceiling of The Dendera temple dedicated to Osiris ‘the first astrological map of the ancient sky.’ The zodiac pendants each have their own symbolism and mechanism. The Virgo pendant is in the image of goddess Isis, magical healer and mother of gods, the Scorpio represents healing goddess Serket, with the sting opening into a lotus flower, symbol of rebirth. Her latest collection the Nereid, anchors itself in Greek mythology. The Oracle of Delphi holds the secrets of the future. The Starfish spins on Poseidon’s trident into handwritten 18k gold sculpted answers “yes”, “no”, “maybe”, “never”, “always”. The god of the seas will guide us in navigating the depths of our mind.
Katarina is herself a Virgo, known for being a ‘meticulous perfectionist.’ Her journey into jewelry took her on a two years quest to fine-tune her brand identity before the launch. The first piece she created was the Marguerite from her Reve d’Amour collection, that a lover can keep even when her soulmate is not around. It started as a simple drawing that turned into a prototype which she wore every day, ‘it was only meant for personal use.’ When her friends started asking for their own Marguerite, she decided to study jewelry design at GIA and seek out artisans in Bourj Hammoud, in Beirut. They were used to manufacture gold pieces with static stones, and the first young man who smiled enthusiastic at the Marguerite in motion became her go-to artisan. Katarina also learned the craft herself, earning a diploma in jewelry making, so that she would know what barriers could be broken in making mechanical jewels. She had always been fond of drawing, but it is three-dimensional objects that capture her heart. Since childhood she would collect miniature objects; tiny houses, books, lockets, erasers with secret compartments that open, close and spin. ‘An object lasts, it tells a story, especially when it has a playful mechanism that allows us to fiddle our anxieties away.’ She has always been fascinated with historical narratives that ‘make sense of the world’ and her university degrees answer her thirst for meaning. She has a BA degree in Psychology with a minor in Anthropology, as well as an MA degree in Museum and Gallery Practice, curious about how humans and objects impact and feed off each other. ‘An object has a soul and the minute you look at it, it brings up an emotion you always had within you.’ During her last pop-up in Amman, she noticed people circling back to her jewelry stand, showing their favourite pieces to their loved ones, playing with the mechanisms. ‘This is the most rewarding part of what I do, when my objects move and enchant people.’ Katarina tells us that one day, she will write the story linking all her collectible works of art. Our talk with this jewelry whiz made us dig deep into our thoughts and realize that our moments of loss when we wander around in search of meaning, are what drive us to seek answers and unleash our creativity.
