When crafting, Netherlands based jewelry designer Jacomijn van der Donk uses her intuition more than anything else. “It’s like having a conversation with life itself. I follow the road my intuition chooses and hardly conceptualize. In this very intimate play with the materials, the piece, its form and its content arise as one,” she explains. In her goat hair designs she sees the material as both dead and alive. “I try to bridge the material world and the life source that energizes it. The inspiration for using hair, came to me from some beautiful old Japanese drawings, depicting women combining their hair in the bathroom".

Using stones is of no coincidence as the material itself fascinated her during her whole life. When she visited Greek island Crete, she spent hours at the shore just placing pebble stones on her hands, looking at them and marveling about their individuality. “The stones took the warmth of my body, and expressed qualities of silence and vastness. Their smooth surfaces, is a sensuous proof of the long polishing process they have been through. In this way, their modest colors and simple symbols are just beautiful.”

Her favorite design is a large tongue shaped out of goat hair, fitted into a waterbuffel horn, with a silver manchet. “To me, it is the perfect expression of physicality, surrender and relaxation,” she says.  Through her designs she wishes to bring nature back to society and to peoples lives. “Like a board river that branches out into many little streams to reach every inch of ground to provide what’s needed, I try to fetch nature into the city and the everyday life, as a reminder of where we come from and what we need.”