I like things that are different.

From: Bucharest Born on: 17 May 1972 Occupation: Creator of contemporary jewelery

Somehow, in those square centimeters, you can find a successful representation of her.

On the right wall of the entrance to the showroom, over the jewelry exposed simply and appealingly on a piece of furniture, a painting was hanging. She later told me how the painting is based on a word of Brazilian origin – cafuné, which signifies the gesture of passing your fingers through your loved one’s hair.

Bianca Grin is a creator of contemporary jewellery. A creator that focuses on the use of recycled materials that has a long past in sales, marketing, and advertising, that has gradually shifted through all major work areas: corporations, small private businesses and their own businesses, but who honestly says that in the last one feels the best, it is the hardest but also the most pleasant. Entrepreneurship teaches you to find solutions, you live somewhat in a continuous alert to which you have to adapt to.

Her route through these areas has taught her what project management is, the correct management of expenses, the understanding of the term of profitability, the vision of promotion, and the way of communicating with the client. You need to know all the stages of the products, from start to finish. It’s like a circle that has to close, there’s a coherence and consistency, you have to follow the object up to the end, to know what’s going on with it. When, for example, a ring arrives on your hand, I need to know that you are happy, that it is not uncomfortable or inappropriate to you. The person who realizes the product must assume that bad things can happen – a small defect or a well unexpressed need of the customer. I think they need to be resolved and then the customer feedback is the one that closes the circle. You need to have stability.What I really like about Bianca is that she’s trying to connect with her client, telling and showing him how the jewelery is made when he’s interested. My customers are not necessarily the ones who buy, but all the people to whom my products just fits and whom understand the processes and can appreciate the work done. With such an opening, she introduced me to her workroom, giving me details about the materials used, the suppliers, showing me her “laboratory” utensils, ultrasonic cleaner, grinder, hammers, up to the chemicals. It is a beautiful but very dirty work, we work with a mask, we have gloves, we have hammers and acid, and if no safety measures are taken, the environment can affect your health, for example by the toxic powder of the polishing paste. You can breathe it gently, if you’re not careful.

I asked her where the pleasure was in such conditions and she answered naturally and without thinking too much that you get pleasure from the fact that something comes out of your hands, that people appreciate and that you have the joy of doing the things, actually doing what you want. You can select your customers and suppliers, if you do not want to work with someone you do not.

Bianca seems to me to be a man with well-defined principles, which also derives from his fairness to the people who are addressing him and whom he sincerely sends to the store because they are looking for something cheaper and more perfect than he can offer. They are looking for something done by the machine, not by the hand of a human, even this thought can easily comfort the ego. People do not understand that a personalized order is extra work, because it is not included in an organized effort and that the impeccability they see in the showcases cannot be obtained in a workroom with the name of a hand-made object.MS: Bianca Grin – is the name of your contemporary jewelry business … so, what is your name? Because the majority of people think “Grin” comes from “Green” and your decision to try to work with recycled materials as much as possible.

My name is Grindeanu. Alexandru Gridean, my grandfather, was named Grindeanu after a registration error when he moved to Bucharest from Făgăraş area. It was need a witness in order to confirm that the ID owner is the same as the one on the birth certificate.

Grindeanu’s name is more difficult to pronounce, which is why I said that Grin is a better alternative from this point of view. It’s clear, easy to remember, international, and defines the green current pretty well.

MS: What are the most remarkable memories of your childhood? And if you would create an object with the thought of that memory what it would be and how it would look like?

Definitely, holidays, because it was the most enjoyable time. I went very much to the mountains, to my grandparents’ house in Cheia, where I stood in the sun for hours. Then in that place I had the feeling that time froze, somehow. I could only hear nature-specific sounds, a rustle, the sound of a small river, chirping. In those moments, it seemed to me that nothing happened, that no one ages, that no one dies, living in more than present. I have not met with this experiences for a long time, and I would really like to live it again.

In my case an idea is born and after this I feel it, analyze it, and then just identify the context in which it occurred. I can say the order is reversed. If I need to create based on a theme it is quite difficult for me and almost impossible to not feel constrained. I have to do what I feel. So I cannot define an object with the thought of those moments, because I need that experience, those sensations and not just a retrospective thought. For me an emotionless object is an incomplete one.

MS: What is the most dear jewelry?

Hmmm … yes, the most beloved jewelry until now is a yellow gold ring with cognac diamond – a gift to a very good friend. I did it with so much attention and pleasure.

MS: Friend envied? Checked! 🙂

MS: What were the most important and useful advices received from Matei Şerban and David Sandu?

Both of them have emphasized the importance of exercise.

With Matei I did drawing sessions, which at first did not work well at all, we did not manage to communicate properly. I remember the moments when he told me how I would see people on the street and the beauty at every corner, by taking the drawing lessons. And I looked and I looked, but what do you think …? I did not see them. Until one day when he explained and showed me how everything in nature is built from geometric shapes. Then I understood why he insisted so much on sketching the cube, the sphere, the cylinder and the way the lights and the shadows fall. So Matei was “decomposing things and practicing.”

David sensed very well about me that I do not like to destroy things. In jewelery this restraint leads you to a difficulty because you do not take any risk. Working very fine on a jewel in an attempt to make it “perfect” you can destroy it. He said, “Oh, you have to learn to ruin things,” and I said, “I cannot do this.” But controlled and in time I overcome this issue. The conclusion is that in order to learn how to do something you have to let yourself be mistaken.

MS: You said that the technique and the creativity are precious things in the process of jewelry creation. What technique do you use or master best?

Yes, they are primordial. In present, the most comfortable is working on wax. I like it because it is also an area that allows me to test different curiosities, but with minimum loses.MS: You said in a past interview that when you feel the creative part of you exhausted, going to the sea and watching the waves is always a victory. When did you create this strong connection with the sea?

This special connection was created in childhood. I remember when I collected coins in milk bottles throughout the year. Everyone from my family had his bottle and by beginning of the summer we had enough money for holiday. And so we managed to leave, as a family, at the sea. It was the place where we could afford anything that was possible during that time, we were only eating at the restaurant … so it was an uninterrupted delight. In addition, at sea it seems to me that all the less pleasant things are washed, there I feel that creativity is activated, but not necessarily on jewelery. I take photos and I feel the need to write. There I find something interesting at every corner, and in the evening I often go to walk around in searching for nice things. I can spend hours on watching and listening to the sea. I would like to find a small island where I can see both sunrise and sunset in the sea.

MS: I know that everything that comes out of anonymity attracts you. What’s the most impressive thing you’ve ever seen?

Yes, I like things that are quite different. For example, when I was working in marketing, I found in a magazine for the luxury consumer of Romania, two designers from Berlin, Jörg Adam and Dominik Harborth, who had super smart ideas and created two objects very beautiful and dear to me. The first object is Mozart Kugel, a mechanical musical ball in wood. It seems to me that it has everything it needs, being aesthetic, practical, simple and obvious from a natural material – wood.The other object is a nutcracker, hazelnut and almonds named Nuss Kubus. There are two cubes and one has half spheres, of different dimensions, cut out of the sides of the cube. There you can put the nut, for example, and it breaks when you confront the cubes without destroying the core or making misery.

I am impressed by the good and simple ideas, and what they have created is simply brilliant to me.

Maybe a coincidence, perhaps a subtle message of the universe, is the link that was later discovered between Nuss Kubus and the cube from the jewelry box. It looks great, and both are dear to me.

MS: What upsets you, Bianca?

I’m upset by the people who come to tell me how to do things. They offer me a thousand variants of MUST without me asking for it. What I want and need does not often coincide with the vision of others. I’m also upset by the people who think that everything is allowed and, to get things done, they do not make any effort, considering enough the simple fact of being alive.MS: And about you? What bothers you about yourself?

I still cannot say every time when it’s the case NO! Perhaps it is a order that does not represent me or which is not on my soul and it is difficult for me to say no to it. I have to choose fights and not lose energy on projects that do not feel close to me.

MS: In a personal hierarchy, what level has your business – your passion and what’s on the other ones.

I do not have a hierarchy, there is no 2nd or 3rd or 11th place. But the first place would surely be taken by family and friends. Somehow, the important things are blocks on a flat area, and among them floating like a smoke, my passion. It is everywhere and keeps them all together.

MS: If you had unlimited resources, what collection would you do and where would you like to present it?

For me the only unlimited resource I want is creativity. I do not think I miss something to make a collection, financially speaking, if you want something there is a solution. From my point of view, a successful collection would not contain precious stones, but would have a message and work behind it. If I think of a place of exposure, it comes to mind industrial spaces, but with a warm touch. I like. As the Wabi Sabi concept, which represents me very well.Now that you’ve read fragments from her personality, I can tell you what I saw in the painting described at the beginning of the article and presented above. I saw her, a woman with long and blond hair.

The dual role of the hand (used both as a hand and as a female head) shows how much she loves intelligent ideas. The minimum of lines and composition shows to me the pleasure she takes from simplicity. As a young woman who has just arrived at the sea side, identifies through immortalized action and solar colors a need for freedom and expression. “I like the summer, 27 degrees … over there“, she told me when I left.

I want to mention that the tenderness that cafuné has by definition, I found it in the interviewed woman from a simple glass of water offered to the given life advices.

Her projects ca be found on biancagrin.ro and on her Facebook page or Instagram.