VERDA ALATON

Do you feel under pressure or as light as a feather when you are designing?
I feel as light as a feather!
 
How do you approach designing, intuitive or mathematical?
I think it is an automatic and natural process. When I see a piece, I automatically feel how I can use it. So it is an easy process for me… In my first years, I learned by trial and error that I can transform a piece in my hand as much as I want but all the pieces have their dynamics and dimensions. I can say that I learned how, when and where I use a piece in time by experience. However, the first steps are always intuitive for me. The important thing is its feeling. If I know how to cook professionally and I want to describe a recipe, it can be like that… Now I know how much I need to use salt without looking at the recipe or counting it with a spoon or something…
 
How does it develop after?
I ask myself that do I want to use this jewelry? If I want to use it by myself, I can give them to the other people.
A piece can be beautiful by its own but if I don’t want to use it by myself, I can’t give it to the other people. So it is firstly an intuitive process for me and then it transforms an analytic process but all the steps are interpenetrated.
 
Well, are you ambitious of jewelries?
Actually I am not ambitious of jewelries. When I look back in this journey, I focus on one thing: how does a person or more likely a woman express him or herself? And even I am looking at their starting points of expressing themselves. I am never ambitious of jewelries but in last twenty years so many things in my inner life’s cornerstones were transformed with the jewelries on me.
 
I want to interfere at this point. You passed to a free space from a public and more tight space. To Design Republic! How does designing jewelry reflect your inner world?
Before anything else, it freed me. When I look back to me when I was 20 or 25 years old, I can say that I was a quiet and self-enclosed person who didn’t reflect its inner world. And to be honest, I can say that I was an obscured person. It was because of so many reasons such as cultivation from family and community life. It was because of the reasons like that. But when I started to produce, I became more free more I tried to produce and express myself with my productions.
 
Actually I am curious about the difference of the jewelries on you after you started to design jewelries.
Because my job is not connected to trends, I can tell you this is connected with my life experiences. Firstly, I was a fan of strong expressions. I loved to travel and I always spared some time to travel. I affected from what I saw in remote continents such as Africa… So all the jewelries I designed were so big. They were big for me proportionally. But they showed me that I wanted produce something by myself and I wanted to express it freely and easily. Maybe, those big jewelries which I designed symbolized it. Now I think that I can express myself with smaller pieces. Did we change the dimensions of the jewelries we designed? No. But it is not a big deal. Now we choose the dimensions as we want. We are mediators in one sense. I do the job which I know. And my wish is to be a mediator between the people and the nature and Tohum (jewelries). So now neither dimensions nor sizes are important, the important thing is to find the way of true expressions.
 
I guess the most affective culture for you was Africa when you were travelling…    
Right.
 
Did the primitiveness in there trigger your creativity?
There is a magnificent freedom united with the nature in Africa. It is so powerful… We describe it as primitiveness in the West. I started to think that why can’t we do it or do we lose it when I saw they are so free and have a unique creativity in those places which we describe as primitive soils. The world will lose those values with industrial developments. I asked myself what can I do? I thought that I can protect those values with my own expression. I wanted to say that there is another option. And I hit the pavement with a brand, Tohum Design. I could design jewelries and I wanted to do it. Another one can expresses those values with a different way. I wish all the people stop for one minute and think that there is an option like that in our lives which depend on consumption because of my expressions. I think that we can express ourselves without destroying forests and consuming all the things we don’t need; we can express ourselves with simple and natural pieces.      
 
You mostly use natural stones in your designs. Why did you choose this material as a starting point although there are so many natural materials?
Yes, my starting point is natural stones but the important thing is for us that materials we use must be natural materials. We call our brand as “Tohum (Seed in English)” not by chance. In nature, all the seeds we sow transform to a unique tree or flower. All the flowers and trees are different. We wish it for our designs. So we produce our designs by hand workmanship and we want them to be unique. I believe we can see all the miracles of the world in a small section of a stone. All the stones have different tissue, form, color and combination and I think all the natural stones are more perfect than the ones which created by humankind. I want all the people to be respectful to the nature and I want them to remember that humankind needs to live one step back from the nature and live respectfully. I saw it in Africa so Africa inspires me most.
 
On the other hand, because of you, people’s path crosses with stones’ path. What do you think about the first meetings?   
If they meet with Tohum Design firstly, their biggest criterion is about size. The people who meet with us firstly usually say that “I don’t like using big rings” or “it is so big for me”. I often experience it so when I hear these kind of words, I act calmly and let it flow. We then start to look at smaller stones. And when they start to think without any prejudices, they start to touch the stones more comfortably. So actually I have no shop. And I don’t want to have one. I think it is a personal process and I want the people to experience it by their own, comfortably. When I watch this process, I see that so many people touch the same stone group which have many stones with different sizes. There is an appealing stone group for every person. And then they choose a stone for themselves. Maybe the stone they choose is big for themselves and they think that it can’t appropriate for themselves. I think there is a magic in this process because a stone’s perspective and size symbolize the connection between the person who choose it and the stone. We try to suppress all the prejudices; we try not to offer something visual for someone we first meet and we also try to connect with the people and live this process together. They sometimes ask that can you offer me a stone? Nope, I don’t offer. I choose some stone groups as my filtration and then I let them free. If they have difficulties in this process, I help them as my inner voice but I always give them some space to discover by themselves. And then I certainly share the information about the stone with them. I want them to read the information by themselves. Because it is so different to hear and read. I think when they read it, they will hear their inner voice. It is the path, actually.
 
How do you describe uniqueness?  
I think it is about being yourself. Everyone is unique and everyone is like a designer for me. 
 
Do you think a designer can be unique one hundred per cent in our day?
Now I got what you meant about uniqueness. As I think it in this way, I can say that there is not so much thing which is unique in our day. I think uniqueness existed in those time when there weren’t any communication systems and there were communities which we call their life as primitive.    
Their only visual sources were the nature and themselves. When they produced something from them, they produced something from scratch. But we always have visual references. Today, I think we all are like designers but we are not designers. I don’t mean to blame but we create something from the visual references which were recorded before in our brain most of the time. I think the process is like that in so many branches of art.
 
What about the copy cats? Have you ever feel disappointed about them?
At first, I felt so many different things such as being offended or being shocked. I witnessed someone who copied our classical ring design, produced the rings with the design and sold them in the stall near me with inner peace. Unfortunately, we live some problems like that. But I learned to be happy about it. I am in my way. If someone wants to copy my designs, it is about her/his respect to herself or himself most importantly. Also no one can be a copy cat forever. You can copy a design for the first time or for the second time but you can’t copy it for the third time. Because the designs’ source does not belong to the copy cat.
 
What is the key point of designing a special accessory for you?
It is about creating new things. I do it firstly because I want to see innovative designs. In Tohum Design, we do not have any worries about designing a summer, spring or winter collection.
 
I got you. So what about your designing climate? 
When we meet the nature, we start to work with the materials or the forms which come to our way. Actually, we aren’t connected to the outer world. We can develop as we change so I want to live it in my carrier. My only purpose is to make innovations. I think remaining unchanged isn’t for benefit of anyone. If I want to change and go forward personally, I want my productions to reflect it. In our collections, we always use natural stones but when we start to use other materials in our series, too, our clients cheer up. It is awesome to see it. We always think how we can develop our products. We try to enjoy designing and share it at first. The only thing we can do is to enjoy and share.
 
Do you think that your designs are luxurious?
It depends on someone’s decisions, thoughts and expressions.
 
How do you describe luxury?
I think freedom is the biggest luxury for humankind. I don’t believe nothing which is concrete can be luxurious. Nothing belongs to us. When we look at the history, we can see the people in old times sometimes lived a life of luxury and sometimes lived a life of poverty. I don’t think we can count the luxury by holding something in our hands.