Interview with Iva Brkic "KEEWEE"

This is what Iva revealed about her passion for creating ceramic pieces of jewelry:

"How did it start…

I’m a student of ceramics at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, Serbia.

I’m graduate year now but when I was second year I remember I made few little tile cups. They were meant to be just test pieces for some ceramic colors and glazes. After firing they turned out to be really lovely. Later they become brooches.

Ever since then I have been making brooches in shape of cups and it is never boring. It is an endless play with shapes, colors, decor, patterns… Cup is definitely my favorite object! Beside cups I have few more motifs like cupcakes, ice creams and popsicles (on summer), cats, teapots. I like to stick to few shapes and vary them. So when I look at some of my first brooches I can hardly recognize them.

At the faculty we are more oriented on making functional objects. There is a lot of technology, rules, boundaries. It can be really stressful although it doesn’t seem so at first glance. I make jewelry with less stress and more freedom.

I like best…

Brooches are my favorite piece of jewelry because they can make some ordinary piece of clothing into something unique and special.

Other thing that I really enjoy making is necklaces with little porcelain cups like beads. Like regular cups these are also wheel thrown just a lot smaller. These take much more patience to make then regular cups.

Materials…

I used to make jewelry from different types of clay but now I work mainly with porcelain.

I use engobes and transparent glazes for high temperatures which look best on porcelain surfaces. Porcelain gives special brightness and clarity to the colors and porcelain white is my favorite white.

As for the other materials I must admit I don’t like wire, fimo, etc. But a combination of porcelain and silver or gold is fantastic. Especially porcelain and flagrant. One of my plans is to work together with some of my friends who are jewelers and goldsmiths.

Inspiration….

I am simple. I enjoy simple things like drinking coffee and eating a muffin. I transfer my little moments of happiness into little pieces of jewelry that remind me of those moments.

Calendar seasons are always inspiration. For this autumn I made beads in shape of mushrooms, apples, pears.

Plans…

Making jewelry is one of the things that fill my life. I have many regular customers which makes me very happy and encourages me to continue with this. Often I don’t have enough time to make all orders from them. When I graduate next year, I would like to devote more time to “cups and muffins” and distribute them to many designer shops and galleries."

More of her work can be seen on her FB profile and site.