Jewellery

Korcula life – a New Zealand perspective (i)

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While Rava was in town (see my previous post – 5 lost years) I enjoyed playing tour guide and shopping in some of our many souvenir shops. I picked up a copy of Marco Polo’s Isle by Michael Donley for my Mum, I will read it then send it to her, perfect!  I have been intending to write some blog posts about Korcula and this post is inspired by Mr Donley work.  And the start of a new series on Korcula and island life;

Korcula

The prologue to Marco Polo’s Isle contains this poem by Tartalja;

Seaside Landscapes

Mala kuca kamena

Sa tri mala prozora:

Zeleni im kapci,

Krov sav od plamena,

A na krovu vrapaci.

A little house of stone

With little windows three:

Green their shutters,

The roof all aflame

And on it, some sparrows.

I have always enjoyed poetry and this short poem paints a vivid picture for me that could be Dubrovnik, Korcula, Lumbarda, Orebic or any of our nearby villages or hamlets.  The green shutters and orange tiles are very much a part of our landscape here.  As you approach Korcula by road you look down on a town tiled in orange and walking the streets green is the dominant shutter colour.

Dubrovnik

The shutters catch my attention and remind me of travels in Italy and Switzerland, even without hearing the locals speak I know I am in an area far from my homeland of New Zealand where you seldom see shuttered windows. The stone houses here also remind me that I am far away from home, whilst we too have a tradition of stone masonry and a heritage that includes stone buildings the dominant building stone is a different colour and the NZ building style tends to reflect the Scottish and English heritage of our latter settlers.

Green shutters and graffiti - Split

The first chapter of Marco Polo’s Isle highlights a NZ – Korcula cultural similarity and this may be one of the reasons that I feel so comfortable here on this isle thousands of miles from home.  Mr Donley’s book opens in the seaside village of Lumbarda,

Lumbarda

and he starts with talking about the crystal clear Adriatic sea;

and goes on to talk about how everybody knows everybody, and everything that is going on in the village.  Macandrew Bay where I grew up is a small suburb of Dunedin and as a child growing up there we too knew everybody in the street and many of those same residents are still living there as neighbours.  For me this is a community that I will always belong to, while many of the families I grew up with have moved away there is still a lot of familiar faces and a strong sense of community.  I get this same feeling here in Korcula, while the history and families here have a much longer connection to the land and region we are all from small communities and everybody knows everything!

 

 

 

5 lost years – where does the time go?!

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Hard to believe it is almost the end of October, the days are drawing in – becoming shorter and darker.  Driving back from a day trip to Dubrovnik three days ago I saw the many shades of autumn sneaking into the roadside grape vines and small trees.

Autumn colours from the bus!

I am fully aware that I have been neglecting my blogger role, I have been having the most delightful time catching up with a Californian friend whom I had not seen for 5 years. Rava and I met at University in New Zealand 20ish years ago, last time I saw her was in Kerikeri, NZ.  And last week I flew to Rome to meet her – having made a rash promise to come and meet her there if she booked flights here to visit us.  I must admit that at the time I promised to meet her I was fairly sure that she would not fly over – I was so delighted when she sent me her ‘I’ve booked!’ email – how nice that someone would fly all this way just to see me, and of course meet Doka and see where we are living.

My flight arrived in Rome an hour before Rava’s and I watched the arrivals door eagerly for her smiling face; I think we talked almost solidly for the 10 days that we were together.

It was such a great time; 2 brief days in Rome,

Roma fountain

the overnight ferry from Ancona to Split,

exploring Split,

Split

then the ferry to Korcula that evening,

Korcula

Then we had 4 days together in Korcula, it is so fun to be a tourist in your own town.  We paid the 15kuna to climb Veliki Revelin – the tower or kula at the entrance to Stari Grad and took in the city views from a new perspective,

ate good Korcula food;

yum!

and enjoyed the chance to catch up on five years.

Rava and I travelled together to Dubrovnik where we walked the city walls,

Dubrovnik view from city walls

ate a yummy lunch together and said our bus station goodbyes – she off to the airport and homeward bound and I on the bus back to Korcula.

As I wrote this it was raining here in Korcula, the perfect excuse to stay indoors and catch up on some paperwork, rest and read.  Rava will be home now and her lovely husband and 2 beautiful children will be so delighted to have her home again, and Croatia will once again seem far away.  Lots of photos and happy memories, until we meet again my friend this short piece is dedicated to you. x

How we create our stunning Filigree balls – Part 3

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Last week I started writing about how we create our Filigree balls, here is the follow up…  We had just soldered the dainty silver pieces into their frames and given them a polish as we wrapped up Part 2 of this filigree photographic journey.

Now the balls must be very gently tapped into shape – we have a bronze mould that we use to ensure the bead pieces are the same shape;

When the beads have been shaped to their desired size a small silver band is created to join the two halves together, the use of a band to connect the halves is not necessary but tends to make a design look more complete. The band may be plain, or several small pieces of silver linked together, incorporate or a twist of have room for pieces of coral or turquoise to be inserted into the band – the choice is ours, or yours as the customer.

Balls and bands waiting to be joined together

Here you can see balls being soldered together – a small piece of wire is used to hold the halves of the balls together while they are joined.

A selection of band options.

After the pieces are joined together we must clean and polish each one – each piece is cleaned and re-heated many times to ensure a shine and polish that we are happy with.

The image above shows beads being heated, a clean and polish will follow.

A selection of completed Filigree Beads from Seba Dizajn

It continues to amaze and fascinate me that there are so many things that can be done with tiny silver threads, some basic jewellery making tools, and a lot of patience and imagination.  We hope you have enjoyed this photographic journey and learned something about the work involved in creating our very intricate pieces of filigree jewellery.

If you would like to see some more examples of Seba Dizajn Filigree balls please visit our facebook page, www.facebook.com/SebaDizajn – and look in the ‘Balls’ Album.

Remember you can sign up to follow our blog in the box on the top right hand side of this page, thanks for joining us.

Back to the Jewellers bench

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Look at our cute wee table, how we long to purchase a proper work bench….. one day we will have the chance to do this.  The space itself is fine, but a higher work table would be more comfortable.

In the mean time I continue to be amazed about what can be created here;

Today we had some lovely customers from Perth, they loved Doka’s work and went away with one of my favourite beads –

 

Tomorrow I will continue the photographic journey; ‘How we create our stunning filigree beads’, see you then.

 

Clean, green, oil spilled New Zealand

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One week ago the container vessel MV Rena ran aground off the east coast of New Zealand’s north island, she is stranded on the Astro Reef near Tauranga.  At that stage the weather was clear and calm;

From what I understand a lot of valuable potential clean up time was lost while the weather was calm.

I am a New Zealander based in Croatia, on the radio here I was able to pick out something about environmental ‘catasphoe’ in NZ, and I have been watching, reading and learning about this VAST and tragic disaster since I first heard this news.  Anxious to know what is not being reported in the ‘news’ I asked a Tauranga based friend what she knew, through this friend I was put in touch with a the ‘MV Rena Response Monitoring & Action’ Group that has been established on facebook.

The images that I am using here come via this group and I am following with interest, sadness and awe the ‘progress’ on cleaning up the mess that has been created by the grounding of this huge vessel.  The ship was carrying 1,368 containers, eight of which contained hazardous materials, as well as 1,700 tons of heavy fuel oil and 200 tons of marine diesel.

 

By Sunday, 9 October, a 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) oil slick threatened wild life and the area’s rich fishing waters.Oil from the Rena began washing ashore at Mt Maunganui beach on 10 October 2011. Bad weather that night caused the ship to shift on the reef, and the crew were evacuated. The shifting of the ship caused a further damage, resulting in a further 130 – 350 tonnes of oil leaking. (via Wikipedia)

My interest in this disaster is natural as a New Zealander/caring environmental person, my sadness is also a natural reaction to this disaster;

how can we not feel saddened?

And my awe stems from the strength of passion and the sharing and caring expressed by the members of MV Rena Group –  together we are strong.  The information, updates, video footage, photographs and thoughts that are being shared via this forum remind me how great it is to be a New Zealander, how together we achieve more, how in times of trouble we must pull together and how the combined voices of people who care need to shared and listened to.  Will our government listen? What action will be taken and will lessons be learnt from this environmental catastrophe?

As I am writing this it is about 3am in New Zealand and these words were just shared to the group by someone who had stopped her car at the beach on her way home from work,

‘ there was a airy feeling standin there alone it felt like i have just lost  a love one i know i have we all have it our beach our pride and joy. as i walked bck to my car tears rolled down my check as it was like i was saying goodbye. i dont know what i was feeling maybe it was sadness anger all in 1 i have no idea’

this was one of the first images that I saw, it also resonated very strongly with me.

Thanks to group members for allowing me to share your photos, and for all the work that you are doing, sharing and caring, you make me proud to be a New Zealander amid this mess.  Kia kaha!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/5770592/Rena-disaster-Second-officer-charged-cracks-in-ship

A news article and footage of the MV Rena

http://www.petitiononline.co.nz/petition/demand-answers-from-the-national-led-nz-government-regarding-the-rena-oil-spill/1338#.TpVrVmCTiTM.facebook

This link will lead you to an on-line petition to be presented to the NZ government when it has 50,000 signatures.