Navah Langmeyer’s creations are a vibrant mix of contemporary design and traditional enamelling, inspired by her mathematical background, love of water, British landscapes, and the materials with which she works. Working from her home studio, Navah experiments with colour, texture, and modularity, creating visually striking, interactive pieces. Her jewellery often incorporates movement, encouraging engagement. Navah’s work is full of energy and life, much like the waters that inspire her.

A mathematician by training and employment, Navah took up metalwork and jewelry making at the Baltimore Jewelry Center in 2016 and discovered her particular passion for enameling there in the winter of 2019. In early 2020, she started working primarily with a kiln and fairly basic tools. Without access to soldering equipment, Navah began exploring settings with cold connections. Her initial, somewhat begrudging work with rivets and tabs soon became enthusiastic as she discovered the creative possibilities of these techniques, particularly the addition of movement and dimension, and the freedom granted by the lack of heat.

Because Navah works in her home studio where she is regularly visited by her cat, she deliberately chooses processes that minimize contaminants and residue, such as wet-packing techniques, vinegar and salt for pickling and cleaning, incorporating firescale and oxidation into work, collecting remnants for counter enamel, and collecting and sorting all metal scraps. Navah’s focus on environmentally-conscious methods evolved into consideration of the entire life-cycle of her work, including modification, repurposing, and eventual recycling once it’s out of her control. She relishes the challenge of making her ideas reality within all these constraints.

As her skill and confidence have grown, Navah’s work has increased in scale, ambition, and meaning. She discovers many of her techniques by accident, and has come to appreciate her failures almost as much as her successes (eventually).