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Beautiful Goddess

I’m a creature of the world:  A Traveller, a Thinker, a Creator and a Learner.  I was born in Prague, spent a crazy barefoot childhood in Africa, cut my journalistic and love-of-clothes teeth in London, emigrated to Australia, lived in Singapore and Venice, and now call everywhere, but nowhere, home.

Before my metamorphosis into an avid beads and pieces collector, I was a widely published photographer and journalist, working, under my real name, SUSAN STORM,  in some of the world’s most wonderful places. I travelled in dugouts, bemos, limousines, charter planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, rickshaws and private yachts. I ate buffalo bladder, snake, dog, locusts, and witchetty grubs, in tents, palaces, riads, castles, haveli, fabulous hotels and grubby dives. I danced with the infamous, breakfasted with the famous, and mixed with the hoi polloi and the humble man.

My interest in beads and ethnic jewelry began in 2003, after a trip to rural India where I photographed women in their tribal finery.

Shortly after, in Africa, I exchanged a fistful of dollars for a sack of silver with an Ethiopian woman, who wanted to go home. I brought the silver back to Australia, where I designed my first unique pieces. For ten years I ran several successful galleries of wearable treasures, trading rare and unusual beads.

In 2011 I closed shop to travel to Morocco, Nepal and Turkey and Venice, on the trail of Venetian trade beads, and Ottoman, Nepalese and Berber bits and pieces for my jewellery, building relationships with dealers along the way. I changed my name to Savanna. The Caravan bit is because I’m truly happy when I’m on the Trail.

We live with my gorgeous husband on a mountain top south of Sydney, in the stunning Southern Highlands, a place of rolling fog and mellow fruitfulness.  I open my studio here for exhibitions and by private appointment.

Scour the site for goodies, or call me to make an appointment for a private, no obligation, visit.


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