Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sharona Wolff came late to jewellery design and making, having studied cartography and geomatics, worked in computer aided design, architecture and engineering. An unplanned, cross-continental relocation inspired a career reassessment, so she decided to go back to her love of design and metallurgy and become a jeweller. It was a strong sense of returning to her roots, as she grew up in the mining industry with an environmentalist mother and geologist father who specialised in gold and base metal exploration in Australia, Africa and Asia. Happily, the two co-existed.
Inspired by the metals and gems of her childhood, she studied jewellery making under a Florentine master goldsmith. While the artistic power, symbols and techniques of the ancient world along with the cultures and themes of the countries in which she has lived and worked shape her eye for line and form, the focus of her jewellery is design and colour. She eschews conventional sparkle for the softer lustre of cabochons and especially favours the nuances of colour found in the gemstones of Africa.
Jewellery is about emotions; the desire for beauty and the telling of a story. It reflects our emotions back to us and we see something about ourselves in it — rather like a portrait. Wolff takes the many layers of symbolism, the myths, legends, stories, techniques and looks at them from the perspective of now and crafts a story. She hopes that her designs translate emotion and tell a story that people can connect with.
Her work is available by appointment and through Davide Bigazzi Studio in Menlo Park, California.
