Edita Drpić


A Captured Moment

While tidying up the room where my daughter still lived 3 years ago, I am struck by the discovery of colored pencils, sharpened almost down to nothing; quite like Proust was by his madeleine cake in the novel "In Search of Lost Time".

Since she was a little girl, I always stored those colored pencils, never threw them away, and they were sharpened for years and years as they represented a tangible memory of moments in her creative development and process, going from dot, line, shape, and letter, to more complex drawings. When I remember my child, the healing process of my inner child is happening simultaneously. These colored pencils already inspired me some time ago when my daughter left the family home and the idea of a necklace which would embrace me with such a simple object was born. An object all of us on this planet grew up with. I developed the idea to the extent that I went one step further; to make a sensory transfer through smell in addition to the visual transfer of childhood memories. This is an area that Ana Ličina, botanical perfumer and custom fragrance maker, has mastered. As I am most attached to the smell of aniseed, both from my childhood and my daughter's, the necklaces will be soaked in a suitable blend of the aroma prepared by Ana, on the wooden part at the tip of the colored pencil. In order to be able to sustain the aroma until the moment I close the necklace around my neck, it is stored in a glass tube with a cork stopper, as the aroma does not come out in such an enclosure.

A worn-out colored pencil like this can still be used, but I have added an additional use to it, which creates for every mother or grandmother an intimate bond with her children or grandchildren. At the time of applying to the Slovenian Jewelry Week and working on the concept of the collection, our family was engulfed by deep blackness and sadness, so I dedicate this project, "A Captured Moment", to my 11-year-old nephew Brin. The smell of these colored pencils will be that of lemon ice cream, which was his favorite.



I was born in Kranj, Slovenia, in 1976. During my student years, I founded my own brand Zelolepo, with which I embarked on a completely unknown path of designing unique fashion accessories made of leather. During my studies I received the Zois scholarship and the Prešeren Award for students, and after graduating with honors I embarked on a long independent path of creativity and entrepreneurship. In addition to designing and making accessories, I was an active member of the Zoofa cooperative, and co-creator of various creative projects. In recent years, I have been interested in more conceptual layouts and thinking about the whole and the broader story of what I want to create and present. In 2018, I co-created the Urbranost exhibition for the architectural bureau Medprostor. In the same year, for the exhibition in the right atrium of the Town Hall of Ljubljana, I created a lightbox installation out of about 300 m2 of white veil, which I re-purposed into packaging bags for a letterpress print studio after the exhibition. For the installation of this exhibition, we were awarded the Brumen Award a year later. This year, for the presentation of the City Municipality of Ljubljana at the prestigious MIPIM event in Cannes, I participated in the design and realisation of the exhibition pavilion. I made 16 white covers to dress the stand-up paddleboards, which were the main message of the project through which Ljubljana presented itself.

I live in Ljubljana and in 2020 I adopted an adult white Swiss Shepherd named Jewel from the Netherlands, who accompanies my every step and lives a creative life full of colors and patterns with me. I am currently learning the techniques and making of American quilting, both traditional and modern, alongside studying the Human Design system.

www.zelolepo.eu
www.instagram.com/zelolepo_atelier/
www.facebook.com/zelolepo