Featured · Garland Magazine (Australia) · June–July 2020
I Wear Letters From the Past
For the Australian craft journal Garland Magazine, Lara turned her master's research into words — an essay on re-creating her Oupa's letters as jewellery, and on what it means to wear the past.
In the strange, suspended quiet of the early COVID lockdowns, Lara sat down to write.
The result was published by Garland Magazine — the Australian-based international journal that gathers the stories behind handmade objects from around the world. Her article, “I wear letters from the past,” unpacked her Master of Visual Arts research and its translation into art jewellery: a series that re-creates letters from her Oupa, reconnecting her with her own childhood and the family voices woven through it.
She later joined Garland's “Ring Around” online seminar, carrying the article's themes into live conversation — the tender, often vulnerable relationship between research, identity, and the act of making.
It's the part of the brand you don't always see on the surface. And it's exactly what makes a VON ARA piece more than an ornament.
“VON ARA is built by someone who thinks about why we wear what we wear — and what those objects are quietly holding for us.”