Shannon Nataf
NATAF Joaillerie
Founder & Designer

A Reminder of Our Own Internal Grandiosity:

Inspired by dimensional space, star clusters, lunar influences, and the universally tangible beauty of looking up. Petit-début is a collection of conceptual groupings, in solid gold, and ethically harvested diamonds and pearls. Referencing notions of magnitude and scale as explored by Eames' Power of Ten -- the pieces act as a reminder of our own internal grandiosity.

Sweat of The Sun:

"The ancient Aztecs believed gold was in fact “the sweat of the sun”. Though this isn’t literally true, the phrase is in fact a highly accurate metaphor. Gold, like most heavy metals, are forged inside stars through a process called nuclear fusion. In the beginning, following the Big Bang, only two elements were formed: hydrogen and helium. A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first stars were blazing away with their nuclear fires. These nuclear fires forced lighter elements together to make slightly heavier elements, and these nuclear reactions released a huge amount of energy. Gradually, these early stars began making elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen — working their way up through the periodic table towards iron. But there was still no gold in the Universe. Once these earlier stars ran out of light elements to burn, they kicked in on the heavier ones. Finally, as they burnt silicon to make iron, they exploded as a supernova, and for a few short moments, each star would release as much energy as all the regular stars in that galaxy put together. In that cataclysmic explosion, for the first time, atoms of gold were manufactured — and then hurled out into the Universe, along with the other debris from that explosion."