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Stories of Vendors
Coral dreams and butterfly wings – exquisite jewellery
Sounds dreamy and romantic? See Jonathan's designs and you could be transported to underwater realms and fairy tale places where butterflies reign. Meet him and you will be amazes at his quiet, soft spoken demeanor.
Charming Jonathan Yun met me at his no-name studio in Armenian Street. Why has it no name? It's a question all of us are asking as this young person has certainly made him self a name with his individually crafted, both filigree and bold, semi precious stone studded, and contemporary silver jewellery.
As this proceeds to shake the chemicals with the jewelry, he wipes his hands and, at last I get to start a proper interview. It doesn't help that the answer to my first question "How old are you", receives the answer, "I rather not tell you my age-lah". This soft spoken, unassuming guy prefers to give as little personal history as possible, and endeavors to be as private as possible in a very modest kind of manner.
"I have always been artistic and took Art as an extra subject in SPM with no classes." How did he score? "Passed with an A1".
So why coral designs? "I am an avid diver and have spent time in the seas around Malaysia, Singapore and the Maldives. The sight and forms of coral amazes me and, as I am intrinsically a lover of nature, it only seemed right to design jewelry inspired by these beautiful living things. Coral seems to be a part of me".
The joy and sophistication of the art that this,easy-to-talk to person does, speaks for him in volumes. Jonathan
is always at our market. Come by and meet him for yourself. Written
by Ambiga Devy |
As
he was on his way to Kuala Lumpur to deliver some of his stuff, he quickly
ushers me in and promptly proceeds to finish off his newly made pieces
in the back of the studio, deftly dumping them into containers with
weird chemicals and starting up a machine that I can only describe looking
like a home made torture instrument. 
A
great enthusiast of the sciences, he finished Form six as a science
student, only giving up on the science education when he could not manage
the additional mathematics. "I am glad I did the sciences as I
use the principles found in the sciences when problem solving with my
art form." It seems that he liked having challenges and only when
the sciences were out of his comfort zone, did he pursue his other interest
in the arts.
Jonathan's
parents then encouraged him to attend college in the Arts in Singapore.
"They believed that this was where my best capabilities lay",
he stated. He stumbled on Jewelry Design in his second year and has
not looked back since. He took a course in Gold and Silver smiting.
His
range of jewellery inspired by nature does not just reflect coral but
also butterflies. He had previously worked at the Butterfly Farm and
collaborated to develop a method of encasing delicate butterfly wings
in resin. Jonathan took this one step further and designed bold silver
forms to hold them, making attractive and unusual pendants and brooches
to die for!