„Urszula Birontowa sat down to drink her beloved coffee – dressed in a proper gown, tightly corseted, hair done and powdered, adorned as usual with jewels which, for her, had long ceased to serve merely as decoration and had become something more; for Urszula, the precious stones were like milestones marking the path of her life, and as she fastened any of her brooches, placed earrings into the lobes of her ears, grown slack with age, or slid one ring or another onto her finger, she remembered perfectly the value every diamond, every pearl, every ruby, every emerald held for her, and most of those jewels had been given to her by her husband, and Urszula remembered when, on what occasion, and under what circumstances each of them had been gifted to her; so every morning, as she adorned herself with jewels, she would choose, as it were, the memories she wished to revive on that particular day”
Kristina Sabaliauskaite, “Silva Rerum II”
Give me memories that I can wear. Ones that I can choose for myself. Good memories, of course, because who would want to wear the bad ones? Let’s leave out what is uncomfortable. Let it be as I remember it, not necessarily as it happened. And right there—satisfied with myself—I slide my laptop so that it sits parallel to the edge of the desk. But where do the bad things go? Aside from beautiful images in our memory, is it worth carrying the difficult ones too? By reading further, you will find out why I am drawn to making "ugly" jewelry as well, and what benefits can be gained from wearing it.
The "Scars" (Latin: Vulneris) collection is created partly out of the need to address this topic. Because I hope that not all of us want to wear only flawless objects. Truth is hidden in the cracks and mistakes. I like watching Kasia Nosowska. I like how, dressed in her grandmother’s glasses, she isn't afraid to look older than she is and to ask us for what most people crave deep down. For authenticity. Because, after all, in all this stupidity, we try to have everything newest, prettiest. Starting with a pretty wall on social media. That’s why we take polished photos of weddings and trips, focus on our appearance, often falling into a fury at the sight of imperfections attacking us, we have trendy dogs and cats, trendy chia and fancy couscous. And where can one see your souvenir photos from outside the divorce court, your selfie by a trash can, or with your mouth wide open at the dentist? Why not a picture of leftover dinner with a soiled plate? At least you can see that it tasted good. No, not going to the other extreme, just weaving in such "flowers" from time to time. Of gray everyday life.
So, let the one without scars cast the first stone. Events that, in retrospect, seem unimportant because they happened when we were small turn out to be, in some way, translatable to our adult lives. They have mutated, yes, but they still linger somewhere within us. We layer impressions, the bubbles of old wounds, onto today's situations. Whether rightly or wrongly, it makes no sense to wonder about it over and over; it just happens. There are also fresh scars, from when we were wounded by the protruding stones of daily life, even though we thought someone had stitched them out of plush. There are, of course, different ways to pull oneself together. Years of therapy, mindfulness, meditation, yoga; personally, I am also for super-healing creation, because as Bessel Van Der Kolk wrote in the book *The Body Keeps the Score*: “One of the reasons art is used to treat trauma by cultures around the world is that it can bypass the inability to express emotions in words that accompanies terror.” We can simply "pour out" our creativity.
Titanium "Vulneris" is a combination of the beauty of polished metal with a cut, a wound, a dermatological imperfection. Jewelry is meant to adorn us, and here it is about accepting that our difficult experiences, our imperfections, can diversify us precisely through authenticity. Sorrows worn on the hand, in the ears, released from the mind, sending a signal to those around us that I am not ashamed of what has happened to me or what I have done, a signal that I proudly wear my life. I renounce nothing. Bad or good decisions, they were just decisions. I go on with my head held high. One can start everything anew, with a different perspective and in an aura of readiness.
Is it just jewelry, or something more?
