Janos Gabor Varga
Seven Bridges of Königsberg Brooch

This piece is part of a series where I represent some mathematical ideas. I dedicate these to my Grandfather, László Fejes Tóth. In this brooch I depicted the Seven Bridges of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) . This problem led to the birth of "topology", a field of maths that is very important in forging and blacksmithing and it is an essential inspiration in my work. So there was the problem in the 18th century: How can one do a Sunday walk through the bridges of Königsberg without crossing the same bridge twice and crossing all bridges and arriving back to the same point. The answer to this question was that instead of hanging around on Sundays you need to bombard some bridges, and then you build a highway through the former historic town center.
And it did happen during and after the World War II. and a lot more worse.
Today this so called "Eulerian circuit" is possible. Too sad.

I was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1976. I graduated as an agronomist in 2002. Until I lived in my country of origin, my passion was animal breeding and ethnography. I did a 10 years long research on the ethnomedicine of animals, involving wonderful, exciting journeys in Transylvania, Ukraine and the Hungarian countryside. The time I spent working with pheasants, shepherds made a deep impact on me: the wisdom of those people, the way they work materials, the way they face the life.
First of all I learnt: there are no „simple people”. We are all bloody complicated.
And... the most beautiful finish on metal is the one a shiny scythe has at the end of the summer.

Then I left Hungary for England where I lived for nearly 3 years, this is where I started to make jewellery. As I spoke very bad English, jewellery become the way of expressing myself.
Starting a new life I become a farm worker, later cheese maker.

Searching for my home I left England and I emigrated to Italy. Here I started again from the beginning, without the knowledge of the language, place. I worked for two years as a goat herd, forest worker when finally I managed to become a full time jeweller. I have my own workshop in a small village in the mountains near to Genoa.