Laura Buzia is a jewelry designer whose life is a continuous exploration and curiosity. She lives in Manhattan, New York, an Art Deco town, in an Art Deco-style skyscraper created for the jazz-era artists. She has expertise in various fields, but her first love was and always will be, ART. For her pieces she uses recycled materials, metal, glass, ceramic beads and different types of threads. Between the 28th -29th of May you can discover her collections at AUTOR International Contemporary Jewelry Fair 2022, which will take place at the Oscar Maugsch Palace, in the heart of Bucharest.
1. Laura, you have experience in multiple fields, health, law, bioethics, how you managed to reconcile them and how do they influence your creations?
The curiosity I was born with and destiny made me choose several professional paths and fields. They have enriched my life, expanded my mind, my capacity for understanding, my imagination and my creativity. Diversity, constant human connections gave me energy and made me understand things in many dimensions. I create, read, write, listen to understand what I think, to learn who I am. I use variety, exploration, compassion and transformation in my creations, in different layers and in tandem with my complex life.
2. When was the moment when you created your first jewelry? What did it mean?
The first jewels I created as a child with my grandmother, from dried rosehips, water-drilled river stones and folded oak leaves. My connection with nature and my sensitivity was inspired by my grandparents and my childhood in the countryside during the holidays that I wished would never end. The primal simplicity of the first jewelry I created remained with me as an ultimate goal.
3. How would you describe your creative process?
Like an architectural crescendo, the first piece is like a door, then I create the balance, I add element by element, afterwards I decorate, amplify, create effects, spaces, double faces, as a reflection of our nature, like us in different states and environments. The complexity of modern life extends to many aspects and my jewelry adapts.
I juxtapose shapes on other geometric shapes such as triangles, rectangles and circles. Some pieces have nature-inspired shapes with fluid lines of chains and double faces. I create jewelry in components that carry very little weight. My vision is that wearing sustainable jewelry made from recyclable materials is a spiritual, transformational, compassionate and reflective process.
I would make an analoguey of creation, jewelry, and a dear to me museum in New York, Guggenheim, the architect’s Frank Lloyd Wright creation, where the entrance is so small that you almost have to bend your head to get in, then as soon as you step into the building, the space expands dramatically.
4.You have you visited all continents including Antarctica, how have your travels influenced your creation?
For me, traveling is relaxing but also expanding. It is a pause to gather thoughts, to let imagination and creation flow. The inspiration of new places, different people, cultures and new states opens the door to imagination, which, like travel, leads us to undiscovered places. My creations are imbued with visual flavors and colors of the places and cultures I have been through.
Traveling has made me realize, that there is so much beauty to absorb and bestow in the world. Through my creations I feel that I nourish the desire and the need for beauty.
5. Coffee dreams is a collection made out of Nespresso capsules, do you incorporate other ready made objects into your works?
The “ready made” objects in my works are the bridges that unite the elements and create unity like rings, spirals of wires and chains. Other “ready made” objects are metal, glass or ceramic beads, pieces of clock mechanisms, vintage crystals or pieces of other old jewelry.
6. What is your favorite piece so far and why?
My favorite piece is the 4-row triangle and two-sided which was my first capsule design. A piece I could not miss anymore because it is a symbol of femininity and versatility. She has two faces, both elegant and contemporary, with influence from Art Deco style with geometric shapes juxtaposed, a warm golden face for my state of tranquility that I usually wear during the day and a silver one that adapts to my energy and comes to life in general at special occasions.
7. How do you perceive the Manhattan contemporary jewelry scene?
My creations are a statement. They’re direct, just like new York. Manhattan is the center of diversity where everything is possible and accepted. Contemporary jewelry is everywhere. From the simplest to the most complex. All cultures that live and pass through new York display their ornaments in different forms. My visual perception of my walks through the city goes from a Japanese minimalism to an exoticism similar to Kayan women with circles around their necks.
8.What have you prepared for the AUTOR 2022 edition?
I have prepared the Coffee collection, a collection of sustainable jewelry made out of Nespresso capsules, mixed with other recyclable materials such as metal beads, glass or ceramics, wires, pieces of clock mechanisms and vintage crystals. When I first saw the capsules on the table of a friend who was about to throw them away, I saw colored candies. I asked her to give them to me, from that moment I started playing with my hands and imagination, to create texture, shapes, elegance, play, I started drinking coffee and dreaming. My jewelry collection is a microcosmos that intrigues a conversation.
When I drink coffee my mind starts to fly, I love coffee shops, I like to see people and it feels like our thoughts are tangled in the flavor of coffee. Each piece of the collection is unique. I love exploring thrift shops, flea markets, but I always had an eye for contemporary design. It’s part of the ecological thinking that clothes and jewelry don’t have to go to the landfill. Through creative vision and compassion, we can bring life and beauty back. My goal in design is to create with care for others, what surrounds us, to connect through beauty, patience, love and generosity.
9.What does it mean for you to participate in a fair like AUTOR?
Participation in thr AUTOR fair means for me connecting with other designers, energy and an opportunity to be together in art, in transformation, a promotion in a space where we can create a family. Connection through art fosters power for change.