Puente Silencio by Namita Goyal
Diploma in Fine Jewellery Design 2024 Batch
Namita Goyal didn’t wake up one morning and dream of South America in jewelry. She grappled with the concept with repeated efforts, confronting head first with the challenges it threw her way. It’s not easy as a daily exercise to try and represent the spirit of an entire continent’s wild energy. South America has a spectrum of cultures, wild lands, and the eccentric mix of influences—into something that you wear. It’s a lot of pressure.
It was difficult initially, Namita admits, to get through the door with her idea. Her connection to the idea was somewhat unstable. But the more she delved, the more the untamed South American undertone gradually emerged in her drawings with monolithic, garish lines, textured wood grain, all relentlessly hammered into one, with half-city and half-rainforest pieces. Rich and rough, like the continent.
She didn’t use the conventional gold and silver basic options. 3mm wood, a spark of metal, and voilà, nuts and bolts. Usable, practical experience, nothing too fancy or delicate. But it was not a breeze to get the little details just right. The wood-laser-cutting business, in particular, getting the measurements just accurate is more difficult than it seems. She had to do multiple rounds of try, fail, adjust, repeat.
It was only a considerable amount of time before finding someone to put the piece together and deal with all the annoying screws. Putting together jewelry should be easy, theoretically. But it definitely didn’t seem so, in this case. Hours and days went by just making sure that all those nuts and bolts stayed where they belonged.
But once the headaches and self-doubts passed, the finished work resembled a small skyscraper arising out of the jungle. Layer upon layer and plenty of metal hardware that make it feel heavy and substantial, it’s not for the people that want dainty. It gives the appearance of strength, much the same as does the enduring and adventurous character that marks South America in general.
Namita did more than craft a gaudy piece to embellish your neck or wrist. She infused the magical essence of the place into a bottle. Texture, color, history, grit – packed it all into this creation and made something that’s not just jewelry, but a homage you can cling to. Making it a whole lot more interesting than your usual bling.
