B
etween the ancient traditions of India, the city life of Madrid and Mallorca’s tranquility, Diana Bornay finds her rhythm. The Madrid-born creative started off in fashion, working in magazines and press agencies before going to larger companies including Amazon. When that post ended, along with a relationship, she turned back to her own creativity, taking ceramics classes and experimenting with jewellery design.
Bornay was drawn to Indian culture for many years, partially through her father, who instilled in her from a young age the beauty of other cultures, and of travel. “My mom, [who passed away when she was 17], gave me a sense of structure and discipline. My dad was very bohemian, he loved cinema, William Burroughs, philosophy, he was a painter,” she notes. “He told me ‘everyone has the power to make drawings’. He recently passed away, but I was with him at the end… I was drawing his dreams.”
On an intuitive whim, Bornay booked a ticket to India, an experience that would change the direction of her life. She had no plans or itinerary on that first trip – just a love of yoga and deep curiosity. From Goa she went to Varanasi, where she met an artisan jewellery maker. “I was watching this artist and I was blown away,” she says. “From that moment, I started looking for jewellery schools and I found one in Mumbai, so I moved there and did a 3 month course.” This led to a 1-year program in Mumbai, an intense program with courses from 9-5, but it gave Bornay the foundation from which she could start to realise her own designs.
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