Yeena Yoon - From the place of the unknown
“I think, trusting in oneself is the most difficult part as a young creative, knowing that you have something special to give and it comes by persevering, it comes bit by bit, you just keep expanding what is inside you and not get affected by external sources. You need to understand that everyone is in the same state or has been. I think to keep going is the challenge and also, when you do more and more of what you do, it starts to make sense and you grow and evolve because of that” . For Goldsmiths’ Stories, writer Rachel Church speaks with Yeena Yoon about her journey from architecture to fine jewellery, exploring and embracing the unknown, and precious pieces that transform before your eyes.
From working on Zaha Hadid’s London 2012 Olympics Aquatic Centre to a small studio in the Goldsmiths’ Centre is an unusual path into jewellery, but when speaking to London based jeweller Yeena Yoon, it comes to seem a natural transition.
Like many interesting contemporary jewellers, Yeena Yoon came to jewellery by a side route, taking her architectural training and sensibility and translating it to this smaller, more precious, form of art. Her jewellery, elegant pieces which combine hardstones like jade and jasper with precious metals, both draws on and reacts against her architectural background.
From architect to jeweller
After a first degree in architecture in Korea, followed by postgraduate and professional training in the UK, Yoon found herself working in the studio of Zaha Hadid, one of the UK’s foremost architects. She describes herself as an unusually lucky practitioner, only working on projects which were built and escaping the fate of the ‘paper architect’. Although her initial strength was in design, working on the construction side allowed her to develop skills which have stood her in good stead as a jeweller.
As she explains, “you get to have a really good understanding of construction, how to put things together, the mechanical and structural aspects of things and also, a sort of resilience in coordinating and how you bring this enormous beast to reality, so that requires a lot of experience and persistence in doing this. But material was my main focus of interest - how do you put those kinds of materials together, how do you get the proportions right in design, so that the door handles are detailed, so that they echo to something exciting which adds to the poetic imagination into space.”
Architects must necessarily focus on material, and this is one of the factors which led her into jewellery. Needing a quick release of her creative juices after the long timelines and focused work of architecture, she tried various hobbies until an evening course in jewellery at Morley College turned her life around. Architecture is a serious business, surrounded by necessary regulations and where mistakes can be fatal, so the playfulness and possibility to experiment offered by jewellery was deeply appealing. Jewellery offered the freedom to explore materials with a new creative freedom and quickness. As Yoon explains, “even if you don’t make something brilliant, you can melt it and remake it. There’s that pure play of materials and engaging with the limitations of your own techniques”.
After the ‘coup de foudre’ of Morley College and further tuition from Sonia Cheadle, joining the Goldsmiths’ Centre for the Setting Out programme was the moment when jewellery changed from a hobby to a new life’s work. While taking a sabbatical from architecture, a timely grant from QEST (Queen Elizabeth’s Scholarship Trust) allowed her to see what sort of craftsperson she wanted to become.
Uniting metal and stone
Yoon’s jewels use the most ancient of materials - precious metals allied with carved stones but have a clear modernity. Decoration is used with careful thought, as an integral part of the design rather than a decorative flourish.
Although her work has its own distinctive language, it draws on the techniques of stone carving and metal wire work learnt from Charlotte de Syllas and Giovanni Corvaja, two of the greatest living exponents of these arts. An open call for a masterclass with Giovanni Corvaja in Italy, via the DIVA museum in Antwerp, gave her her first taste of working with gold wire, something which she continues to explore in her jewellery. Corvaja’s scientific and methodical means of teaching resonated with her and has proved an enduring fascination.
If working with metal often requires fire, speed and precision, stone carving is a much more open and instinctive art. Yoon describes stone carving as messy and time consuming, requiring an engagement with the material and its unique qualities. She describes stone as having a generous flexibility but that you can never rush it, or you will feel defeated by its nature. It fits into her deep interest in the idea of perfection and imperfection. How do you engage with the notion of perfecting the craft? Is that an illusion or a realistic ambition?
Learning through making
‘When you’re trying something different, you’re always in the place of the unknown. I quite like that, but emotionally, it’s always a challenging place to be as a maker.’
Yoon’s finished jewels have a spareness and clarity which belie the time consuming process of creation. While the final jewels feel balanced and almost inevitable, the process of creation is one of iteration and experimentation. Each jewel represents a technical question which has been asked and answered, sometimes one which will be returned to, to try alternative solutions or to test a hypothesis.
She describes herself as a designer that thinks through making, and her studio houses hundreds of paper models and sketches, exploring different ways of working with space and volume, to find a design which feels correct. Prototyping also helps to solve technical problems - how can a brooch pin be made secure, yet unobtrusive? Is there a better way to fix a wire or negotiate with a screw? Sketches and models are combined with careful technical notes, recording each metal alloy or design solution, alongside an archive of silver mock-ups, samples, wires, screws and other materials.
Timeline pieces
Alongside more accessible earrings and rings, in which her design language has been simplified, she also works on ambitious and technically challenging works, embracing new technical and design challenges: “I call them timeline pieces - these timeline pieces are tools to make me grow and I like that part of making and designing and thinking conceptually. I think that’s where my passion lies, bringing all my past skills and past studies all together, trying to push for what I believe. It’s exciting.”
For the ‘Solar Brooch’ she alloyed and drew her own gold wire, delicately stretched over the surface of a hand-carved black jade disc, so beautifully finished that the onlooker is left puzzled as to how the effect was achieved.
Alongside the practical problem of making jewels which are functional, Yoon is also engaged by the question of beauty across the whole jewel: “I think the back really tells the effort someone has put into things. The front is just the front but when you see the back of something, you can really tell almost the personality of the craftsperson and how they decided to put things together, because that’s where the mechanical aspect meets with the creative part of it. And that’s the most difficult part to be honest because it’s not always easy to make the supporting elements beautiful but I like that aspect of it.”
This attention to detail goes back to her architectural training, in which a building façade offers the main view but it has to hide all the essential services, just as the back of a brooch has to accommodate the pins, screws or fixings which hold it together and make it work, while remaining clean and beautiful, giving the jewel’s wearer another surface to enjoy.
Transformations and interchangeability
Like traditional tiaras which can break down into necklaces, brooches and earrings, Yoon’s jewels often offer an element of transformation and can be engaged with in different ways. The Covet series made jewels into miniature sculptures, earrings being set into dedicated bases, to be displayed when not worn, rather than hidden in a jewellery case.
In Umbra, a natural octahedral diamond, collected from the ocean bed, became the inspiration for a pair of black jade earrings set in a hand-carved, faceted stand. The shape of the diamond is echoed and enlarged in the facets of the earring. They are designed to be transformable - the upper part of the earring, made of jade faceted to resemble a rose -cut diamond, can be unscrewed and connected to the diamond pendant to make a shorter pair of earrings.
Yoon’s clients enjoy this element of dexterity and the opportunity to engage with their jewellery. As she explained, many clients approach her wanting their pieces to be transformable, adapting a brooch, for example, to wear it as a pendant.
Some advice to a new jeweller
“I think, trusting in oneself is the most difficult part as a young creative, knowing that you have something special to give and it comes by persevering, it comes bit by bit, you just keep expanding what is inside you and not get affected by external sources. You have to put in hours of effort into things and I think not being swayed by others is the most difficult thing when you’re a creative, especially in jewellery when you’re working by yourself. I feel very lucky that I did the majority of my youth working in architecture where it was a group environment. And any jewellers who start by themselves, it’s quite challenging because most of the time, you’re by yourself and it’s quite challenging. You need to understand that everyone is in the same state or has been. I think to keep going is the challenge and also, when you do more and more of what you do, it starts to make sense and you grow and evolve because of that”
As Yeena Yoon’s work evolves and grows, she is carving out her own place in the jewellery world, fusing stone and metal to create her own individual vision. Her work gives a preciousness to stones like blue-john or tiger’s eye, shining a light on underappreciated minerals. Each piece moves her practice on and defines her own unique visual language.
Written by Rachel Church | Photography of Yeena and her Studio by Paul Read | Photography of Covet and Umbra by Richard Valencia