The Story

I flirted with studying fine art but read History of Art after leaving school and later studied Italian in the extraordinary city of Bologna. I love all things Italian, African and Indian..Italy feels like a university i never actually graduated from, and well Africa and India both seem to be places to me that I might not be able to know thoroughly if I were to live several lifetimes. They are all places close to my heart and to my mind, the scope for inspiration in their legendary landscapes is infinite.

My life long love of collecting things is born partly out of curiosity and partly out of the often fascinating tales behind an object's life. These elements are the key to the kind of jewellery I create. Jewellery that often incorporates the hand made along side the geological as it were. I dropped the idea of choosing exactly what to gather up long ago as I have never been very good at settling on one thing, wherever I go I am compelled to stop and look at absolutely anything that could be potential material or a new idea, not to mention meeting new people who could change my perspective through the course of a conversation, the road less known is the most exciting one somehow, whilst having the lessons learned before as constant companions along the way...

I get my designs and ideas down on my myriad of half used notebooks, air tickets, the back of my hand, actually whatever there is to hand and currently everything is strung in India as stringing is essentially what Sonaquila is all about.

Every piece of Sonaquila jewellery is about nature, light, scents, music and people but when you own it, I am lost from the equation and it becomes your song and your sign...