Mihaela Tarhuna is one of the first artists in Romania who, in the 90s, dedicated herself to the creation of jewellery, proposing an atypical type of jewellery with a strong personal touch under the brand name: TARHUNA bijoux. The interview was conducted by AUTHOR in 2009.
1. What can become jewellery?
The story of jewellery is a real labyrinth in which the jewel is a mysterious part that dialogues – to a good extent, studied, conflicting – with the rest of the composition that makes the character. What’s exciting is that we want story and we want characters… And I don’t know in what particular way, but that brings us closer… and to the caveman. There’s a great diversity of material, forms, scenarios, “conflicts” that throw many characters into story-laden reality. And the stories repeat themselves in other forms.
2. What objects, beings, etc. now around you would you turn into jewels?
The objects that attract me are, by an indirect extension, bottles… not the beautiful ones, or the coloured ones, but the ones I used to draw in the studio, the milk bottle, for example, now totally replaced by plastic. I have a nostalgia for the weight of it, too. Beings, if you ask me, long-lived birds. I’ve noticed that these, the long-lived ones, have less… innocent shapes, abrupt proportions and forms, movements not elegant, rather lacking in colour, and a voice… un-melodious, i.e. a suite of no’s to beauty. Perhaps these non-qualities give credibility in this excessively “arranged” context, impressing by their freedom from the rule.
3. Does jewellery need daylight or evening light?
Jewellery needs light in the stories of the viewers, not in the story of the wearer. The character who chose the jewellery to wear started their story before they took it out of the box. Inside the mind light works differently. Besides, there are actors who “talk” with their backs turned, or by simply sitting. The magic is triggered by the inner story more than the effects of the stage.
4. Who would you like to wear your jewellery?
Especially people I don’t expect.
5. What is the most beautiful piece of jewellery you have ever seen?
Probably the most impressive pieces of jewellery are the royal insignia, crowns and jewels themselves, but also the other royal ritual objects, such as gloves with gemstones woven into them, which are mostly used at coronations and then kept in treasuries. I don’t know if I can speak of beauty, but rather of power giving beauty, because jewellery is above all a sign of power. The mystery of power gives beauty, beyond the workmanship that makes a crown, for example, full of detail and ample or not, such as Charles the Great’s gem-set crown of solid gold, in which large, unpolished precious stones impress differently from a delicately worked crown of gold, an impressive braid of oak leaves, such as, for example, the one discovered in Philip II’s capital of Macedonia at Vergina.