Neta Harpaz - from the love of making jewelry
Neta Harpaz studied to be a goldsmith and jewelry designer over 15 years ago at the WIZO College in Haifa. Her final project received good reviews and was chosen to represent Israel in a design exhibit in Munich, Germany. Neta was motivated to continue crating and designing jewelry but then her daughter was born and Neta became a full-time mom – and stopped working. She had later started teaching, which she continues doing. A “slipped disc” a few years ago brought Neta to take a long leave of absence with a lot of free time on her hands: “Time for thoughts, time for ideas and my hands really started to yearn for all the tools I used to work with” says Neta.
Neta started designing her unique Mezuzahs and continued to create the medallions. Neta’s presentation at the 2006 Jovella exhibition received lots of interest which motivated Neta to design jewelry as well, in different styles.
A self-proclaimed lover of advanced design technology, Neta uses laser and computers in her design process but it is very important for her to conserve the ancient gold crafting “the work with the burner, placing, flattening, the hammers, in short – the manual work”.
Neta’s unique mezuzahs, a few of which you can see here, are all hand-made and so there are no two alike. They are all made of silver, gold plated silver and semi-precious stones and they definitely provide a personal touch at the very entrance to the house.
The inspiration for the jewelry Neta’s designs comes from a rather surprising source- while many jewelry designers spoke here about the nature and the people around them as source of inspiration, Neta, being highly technical, gets hers from the tools themselves. Watching the tools, different machines and machine parts are those inspire her creativity. She is also inspired by Judaism and one can see phrases from the bible incorporated in some of pendants.
Nets’a creations can be purchased in many shops in Israel and in her Kfar Vardim studio, where she works and creates.
Neta Harpaz
