Brief biography of Elretha Brynard

Elretha is born in Cape Town, lived a few years in Johannesburg, moved back to Cape Town where she finished high school. She studied Jewellery design at CPUT and graduates in 2011. She is plans to do her degree, not only to work herself up higher, but also to gain an extra year to find herself, and to explore her style, and to figure out where to from now.

Principle concerns

My principle concern is to make people aware of how awesome nature actually is. There are thousands of elements people don’t realize when it comes to nature, and I want to show that in my Jewellery.

Attitude to design

I like to play around with ideas in my head. I would look at something and suddenly get an idea of a Jewellery piece that I like, and that I would like to manufacture. I like bold and clean cut Jewellery and therefore I wouldn’t say that design is my strongest point. I like to sit an scribble around, explore an idea, but wouldn’t be able to do it all day 24/7.

Themes

My theme throughout my course at CPUT was around nature. I like the flow in nature and I believe that one can design amazing pieces from that, and there is a market for it. I like natural, organic things and that is why I thought it would be great to incorporate that into my work. I get inspired by all the different shapes, patterns and textures nature has to offer.

Aims and inspirations

At this stage, I would really love to have my own little workshop, with a Jewellery store; maybe even have one or two people working for me. My aim is to finish studying, and to find a nice suitable job, where I can gain experience and even work myself higher. I what to build up my own workshop and design a range which I can then market and explore.

Influences

I don’t really look at one “era” or style to get inspired. I look at all things (even topics that don’t inspire me) because if I play with the shapes a little, I can come up with something that I like.

At this stage I am not going to market myself, because I’m looking to work for someone for at least 2 years, but after that it would definitely be through word of mouth, some exhibition marketing and local advertising.

I naturally stick to silver metal, and incorporate a lot of stones and pearls in my pieces as I feel they mainly natural found objects. I am open to explore different materials to use in my Jewellery but for now, I just use them to inspire me.

I try to use all the techniques that I have learnt throughout the 3 years.  I like to repousse, as it is a very free-form and not perfect - just like all things in nature.