Adjara Tapsoba - necklace designer, artist, entrepreneur

Adjara Tapsoba is an artist and jeweller from Burkina Faso who has made Abuja her home. Her venture into necklace designing started at the age of 24 when she decided to collect leftover materials from a sculptor’s studio and turn them into earrings, which she sold locally. As time went on she also started making necklaces to go with the earrings. She did this, she said, in her “quest for survival” after having gone through a lot.

Orphaned at the age of 12

Born the 14th child into a polygamous family in 1976, Adjara’s mother died when she was 4 years old while her father died when she was 12, leaving her to care for herself, working as a housemaid, cleaner, sales girl, etc. At the age of 17 and never having had the opportunity to step into a classroom, she was forced into marriage to a much older man by her uncle. The marriage produced two children but ended in a divorce – and this was when she started her craft of making earrings and necklaces. “In time,” she says, “the demand for those small necklaces grew.”

New designs using new materials

A necklace by Adjara Tapsoba

But the availability of scraps from the sculptor’s workshop to satisfy her growing clientele dropped, so she decided to add other materials such as African beads. The combination of cow bones, ivory, and ebony to satisfy her customers created new designs for her necklaces. As the years went by, she also introduced other materials such as leather, brass, silver, corals, precious stones and a mixture of other beads to make her necklace designs unique and stand out. She sticks mostly to natural things, such as horns, coconut shells, to ensure that her pieces are friendly to the skin.

Full-time artist and jewellery designer

Today, Adjara is happily married to Job Anu and they have two children. She is a full-time jewellery designer. “I don’t have a shop yet,” she says, “but friends help me by hosting me and inviting friends and family over.”

Adjara Tapsoba can be contacted at:

081 6476 9995

Tapsjuwel@hotmail.com

Below are some samples of Adjara's works. Photos courtesy of Adjara...