IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams.

Jewelry collection by Joyas Punto Eme (courtesy of JPE)

For this week’s project we have chosen Joyas Punto Eme, created by 24-year-old Melanie Terbalka. Having dreamed of creating a jewellery line for years, she launched Joyas Punto Eme a year ago. Gaining enough funding from the IdeaMe platform would allow her to carry out her Autumn/Winter 2012 collection as well as showcase her jewellery – old and new – at some of the most important design markets in the country.

A graduate of Visual Arts and Culture, Terbalka has been studying Jewellery design for four years. She designs and creates every piece of jewellery she sells. Her pieces are handmade, colourful, unique and delicate. The line’s current designs are intricate and include large necklaces made using a crocheting technique. Rings are composed of twisting layers of silver and feature small linear patterns, while earrings vary from colourful and dramatic to small and dainty.

Terbalka doesn’t cite any particular influence on her designs, but notes the importance of colour and its power to influence all of the pieces in her collections. “To be able to play with with the interaction of colours, the textures or the materials and how they mix together to create a language is very interesting to me.”

The jewellery on offer is particularly striking and it’s hard to believe that they are all made by one person, such is the diversity of the collection. The pieces feel undeniably modern, and while there may not be a direct influence, they also retain a certain Andean essence, through the different mixes of materials and colours.

The jewellery is made out of real silver and Terbalka sources the other materials herself, resulting in high quality pieces that you are unlikely to find elsewhere or in a shop. “I think it’s really important that the primary material is a good quality, because it means a lot for the development and creation of the piece as well as creating an object that is visually attractive.”

Earring by Joyas Punto Eme (courtesy of JPE)

The main concept behind Joyas Punto Eme is that the line should be constantly developing and evolving, which is achieved through disctinct changes between the collections. “It’s important to me to be in constant change, creating high quality, innovative pieces that people haven’t seen before.” The ‘Fluid Collection’ for example focused on the union of two separate materials to create one single piece, while other collections have focused on the essence of femininity. So while these pieces may see the designer exploring the use of different colours, her next collection may be entirely different, and will take shape through experimenting with new ideas.

With the presence of more and more chains, jewellery can often be cheap, uninventive and tacky. Independent designers like Terbalka need funding in order to continue producing unique and interesting jewellery that women of all ages can enjoy and treasure.

Gaining funding will allow Terbalka to bring her latest collection to fruition, meaning she can continue doing something she loves on a daily basis. “It’s very important to me that the project is successful, because this is what I love to do, and I hope that comes through in all of the different collections,” she says.

“There’s a lot of work that goes into everything I make. Dedication and love are important. To be able to what you love every day is the most rewarding this there is!”

As an extra incentive, Terbalka is offering those that contribute to Joyas Punto Eme a gift, and each can choose a piece of jewellery from the new collection.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams.

This week’s Ideame selection is ‘En Construcción’ (In Construction), Buenos Aires’ maiden contemporary jewellery symposium that is to be held from 29th March to 1st April. The artists who attend will be able to display and possibly sell their quirky, eccentric and unorthodox pieces that may or may not be ready to pair with your favorite belt.

“It’s one part jewellery one part art,” said Francisca Kewitel, a professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism at UBA who is managing the Buenos Aires leg of the symposium. “I typically create very large installations these days.”

AIRE by Francisca Kweitel (Photo courtesy of the artist)

One of her latest pieces is pearl necklace on steroids of sorts; strung with glowing white orbs about “three metres long that envelopes my shoulders.”

Similar exhibitions that take a step away from traditional gold and diamonds have already taken place elsewhere in Latin America to high acclaim.

“The first one was held in Mexico in 2010,” said Kewitel. “It was very large, very important, and drew a lot of people.” A subsequent show was held in Chile.

Despite the success of previous events, Kewitel said that contemporary jewellery as an art form is still finding its footing in Latin America. The exhibition was borne of the gap in institutional support in training and production, and virtually no exhibition space or research exists in the arena.  The namesake, ‘En Construcción’ represents the stage at which contemporary jewellery is now being recognised as its own artistic entity in areas of Latin America.

The upcoming exhibition will hold workshops, exhibits and various activities, and be a forum for discussion and interpretation. Kewitel said that work is about “unique artistic and conceptual objects that are not meant for commercialisation.”

The four artists scheduled to lead the workshops span the globe, and are considered at the top of their fields. The forums engender intense discussion and self-discovery, lasting for eight hours a day for three to four days.

'Massa confussa' by Ruudt Peters (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Ruudt Peters, currently a professor at Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School in Italy, will lead an interactive discussion on “air,” in which participants will learn to translate their own personal space into a new freedom and spirit of creativity. Each workshop will hold 10 to 16 artists, jewellers, designers and design students, and may be held in either English or Spanish.

The exhibition is set to go, and donations collected from Ideame will help to fund videos, photos and other documentation of the event that will support research and institutional support in the future.

Photo by Daniel Estrada

Tucked furtively up a side street off Avenida Santa Fe is the mecca of South American jewellers. An Aladdin’s cave of regal gems and sumptuous showstoppers, Fahoma is an opium den for jewellery junkies craving righteous rocks.

Julio Toledo is the designer behind the Fahoma empire, which originated in Buenos Aires, and branched out to Madrid, Dubai and New York. A 36-year-old Cordoban-cum-porteño, he has been working for the brand for the past eight years, promoting his designs both in Argentina and abroad.

Toledo spends most of his time in the Buenos Aires branch of Fahoma when he isn’t travelling and finding inspiration for forthcoming collections, working from a vast studio workshop above the shop, where accessories-laden tables and wooden worktops are strewn with charcoal outlines for his next collection. The shop itself is like a Pandora’s box; with a simplistic black façade, elegant window displays and chic staff kitted out in the Fahoma armour.

Inside, large glass cabinets proffer collections of opulent jewellery, belts and bags that resemble objets d’art in a museum. When a gaggle of porteñas enter, Toledo opens a drawer brimming with multiple strands of coloured beads and Austrian crystals and produces Maharajah-style dressing cases bursting with 20s-esque jewel-encrusted clutch bags.

Toledo says he doesn’t adhere to fashions, modes, vogues or trends when working with his clients and his designs. The pieces and designs are in a world of their own – reminiscent of jewellery worn by Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn.

But there’s room for eclecticism.

Photo by Daniel Estrada

When I meet him, Toledo is wearing a bold necklace bearing oddments that include skulls and monkey hair, which he tells me he designed for ‘the man who wants it all’.

Do you create your designs specifically for porteñas?

Essentially I don’t think I’ve ever really geared my designs and pieces towards the Argentine market. I always did what I felt like designing, without searching for approval in any specific area or market or clientele. I know what the European consumer is looking for and how that differs from the Argentine consumer and I’m very respectful of this and keep this in mind all the time when I pick the collections. I want people to see jewellery as a form of personal statement.

For the forthcoming winter collection, where did you draw your inspiration from?

I felt this need to mix warm textures with that sensation of used clothes and faded, washed colours; mixing timeless pieces like pearls, 1920s geometric stones, crystals and diamonds. The principal colours for the winter 2008 collection are black, greys and charcoals, dark blue, navy blue, royal blue, deep silver, metal combined with fresh water pearls in various shades. This collection has a gothic feel about it.

How did you start designing jewellery and accessories?

Actually I started by designing clothes, haute couture. What really drew me into this was the diversity of materials and the things that I could make, or rather the possibilities that I had, so I started to work with various ideas and I got hooked and started to evolve my lines and collections.

So you saw jewellery as a more pliable and malleable design point? Rather than designing for couture and ready-to-wear?

I always wanted to do haute couture, but I started seeing jewellery as one more possibility. I started to see how I could branch out and work with something else. The thing is, I have more affinity with jewellery and I found I could diversify and encounter several choices and adapt different lines to different styles to different sizes. It was a question of amplifying my possibilities and opening up to a wider creation.

And so far, what is your greatest and proudest achievement?

Photo by Daniel Estrada

Every single day I see what I do as an achievement. Every time I finish a piece, I see it as a great achievement. And for me, I get great satisfaction from the women who enjoy wearing my pieces, or what my pieces bring out and awaken in each and every woman who wears them. I get satisfaction through their satisfaction. Every single piece has great significance and sentiment for me, because I work from the very start to the very end with every stone, so at no stage of designing or making the pieces do I find it monotonous or routine. Every single day is different for me – a new combination, a new length, or I stumble across a new design or form or shape.

For more information visit www.fahoma.com

How to work this bling:

All of Fahoma’s pieces have the ‘va-va voom’ factor and they are best worked with simple cuts and block colours. Heavily patterned fabrics (unless we are talking Missoni) makes an outfit too ‘busy’ and detracts from the vibrancy of the jewellery.

For Pinamar beachwear, team the Fahoma summer collection of red floral necklaces and marigold handbags with a cute black crochet bikini and a white kaftan. For Punta del Este party nights, get into the swing of it with a Zara gold sequin 60s mini dress and white flower crystal cut earrings.

Alternatively, strut through Palermo in a leopard print headscarf, wayfarer Ray Bans and Fahoma’s semi-precious turquoise and gold flower earrings.

For some nocturnal Buenos bling, match one of Toledo’s vibrant clutch bags, in royal navy or emerald green, with a pair high-waisted black trousers and a white long vest top. Accessorize this look with the winter collection’s fabulous cream and white semi-precious floral cut crystal necklace and black and white flower hoop earrings.