About us

Students

Zala Štalekar

is an industrial designer and goldsmith. In 2008, she graduated from the High School of Design and Photography in Ljubljana, majoring in industrial design and design studies, and continued at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. Already in her student years, she liked to travel to distant lands and thus expand her horizons. She was involved in various projects, collaborated with a small chocolate factory where she created pralines by hand, and also managed a boutique hotel in the vicinity of Slovenj Gradac. During these years, she was constantly looking for something that she would really like to design and that she could create with her own hands. The answer appeared when she enrolled in the Mengeš goldsmith school in 2020, where she found her passion in jewelry design. Since then, he has been continuing his education in the field of goldsmithing, gaining new knowledge in goldsmithing practice from his mentor David Kramarić at the Mengeš goldsmith's studio (goldsmith's academy). In 2023, she also finished the goldsmith's school at ŠC Celje and thus obtained the official title of goldsmith. Her life is torn between her native Slovenj Gradec, the Mengeš atelier, and Graz, Austria, where she lives and will soon open her goldsmith's studio.

Mentor

David Kramarič

When he decided to become a jeweler in elementary school, he didn't have much information about the profession itself, he just wanted to make jewelry and have free rein in terms of style. His first mentors, renowned designer Irena Ambrožič Zupan and later goldsmith Anton Marolt, gave him an insight into the creation and techniques of goldsmithing. He soon set out on his own, and in 2005 he opened a goldsmith's studio in Mengš, where he still creates and teaches today. He develops goldsmithing techniques by designing and making unique jewelry and wedding rings. He improves the techniques of stone forging in the famous Alexander setting school and Gerardi setting school. Since 2018, he himself has been sharing his knowledge, first at the Mengeš Jewelry School, and later at the Mengeš Jewelry Academy.

Tjašo Petrič Cvet

the love of drawing led to the Art High School - Fine Arts. But by enrolling in the Faculty of Social Sciences in 2008, she also set her sights on the media, specifically television. Although she imagined working behind the camera, her second home became Svet on Kanal A in 2011, and as a journalist she co-created the show for 10 years. While working, the desire to create was increasingly expressed, after which she was taken over by the very theory of creating jewelry from precious metals. But as a self-taught person, she took up her first tools and first pieces of silver only in 2019, after she thought she had already gathered enough information. After the product announcements, the first orders began to arrive, and for two years she juggled journalism during the day and making jewelry in the evenings, which stretched into the night. After starting a family, she mustered up the courage to step into an independent path with both feet and test her skills and luck as a jewelry designer. Her great wish was to upgrade her knowledge, and this came true for her when in 2023, under the mentorship of David Kramarić, she began to perfect her work and learn more demanding techniques.