A Matter of Time by Julia Maria Künnap

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Julia Maria Künnap

The perfection of an idea is visualised in the faceting diagram, where a gem is described by a formula: a table of faceting angles, indexes and instructions. The cutting process usually starts relatively calmly, but sooner or later, I make a mistake. My mind wanders for a moment and fact gets too deep or there's a tiny particle on the lap that leave a scratch upon the stone. Then, I try to hide this failure by re-cutting the neighbouring facets. Usually, it means I have to make more little mistakes around the big one. In this way, a perfect idea becomes a collection of human errors. For some reason, it is quite inevitable and happens in almost every work I do. Therefore, I set a mark to understand whether a piece is ready or not. I consider it finished as soon as I can bear all the mistakes it possesses.
/Julia Maria Künnap


About the artist:
Julia Maria Künnap is a freelance jewellery artist currently living and working in Tallinn, Estonia. She has graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts, Jewellery Art Department under Professor Kadri Mälk (MA 2004, BA 2001).
Künnap works with natural gemstones and has developed a technique to combine the facet cut and free form engraving. She has had solo and small group exhibitions in Estonia, Italy, USA and Taiwan. Additionally, her work has been shown in various galleries and museums in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Paris, Stockholm, Riga, Padova, Munich etc.
In 2018 her lapidary work was recognized with Herbert Hofmann Prize.
Her work is in the collections of Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Boston Museum of Fine Arts and MAD Museum of Arts and Design New York.