My name is Efrat Davidsohn. I am 37 years old. I have been designing jewelry for over 15 years and I run a small vintage style boutique shop in the Soho of Tel Aviv, Israel for almost five years. I make Bridal jewelry, accessories, and design and sew alternative bridal dresses.
I worked for 4 years at the central Opera house in Tel Aviv as a prop woman creating and building special instruments like face masks, jewelry, and background scenery preparing the stage for the next upcoming show and obtaining lots skills in all kinds of levels. I also had the opportunity to work closely with many talented artists. It was the most creative and influential era of my life by that time.
At that time I had some pieces of jewelry that I had bought from other jewelry designers and they used to break apart a lot and I found my self repeatedly going to get them fixed till I decided to fix it by myself and from that moment it’s all history!
I am a mother too – I have two precious children, Alma, age 5, and Idan, age 2, and I have them occupied for almost 25 hours a day. I invest most of the time to be with them, but also find time to make my jewelry; you are probably asking your selves how? From the day they were born, I started taking them to my studio and opened a small nursery in the corner of the store. I played them some music, fed them, and when they were stuffed, they would go to sleep or start playing – giving me some freedom to make jewelry in the spare time and at night (the golden moments!) that I had to escape.
I think the reason that most of the time I am a happy mom is that I can really keep my identity as a designer and not only as a mother – to make jewelry and take care of the children too. It’s therapeutic!
My studio is in a tiny room inside my shop and there I have all my stuff and materials: All kinds of metals, freshwater pearls, antique pearls, Goldfield and silver sterling chains, fabrics, antique metal pieces and especially playing good music. I listen to Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday and many more and they also influence my designs. I use special techniques and some are antique used in the1920’s, I acquired them from research, observation and lots of reading. I also started by make them Tiffany style lamps, art dolls and metal chairs.
I work on 10 (!) different items at the same time in order to keep up with my imagination before they all vanish from head. I tried several times to write them down and sketch my ideas on a paper but it never works. Amazingly, it only works when I work on them at the same time, and that is why I never get bored of making them. Many new ideas but little time to make them!
I guess what I love the most in creating and designing jewelry is that I never know what is going to happened while I’m sitting down to make them, how it’s going to end up & look like.
Thank you so much Efrat!
Be sure to check out her beautiful Etsy shop!
