Vally Kontidis

Vally Kontidis was born in Athens in 1964 . She created her first designs during school years and it was then that she decided to take up Art. She got her first lessons in jewelry next to the sculptress Janin Baet and the jeweler Nikos Nafpliotis. She graduated from Middlesex University in London and received a BA (Honours) degree (First Class) in Jewellery. Later, she took glyptography lessons in Athens and from 1998-2000 she went to Montgomery College of Art in Maryland, USA, where she got a diploma in Silversmithing and enamelling. Following that, she attended many seminars on various jewelry techniques like Kumboo and Photoeching with well known USA artists. Among them was also handmade Spectacle Frame design and construction in the Arrowmont School of Arts in Tennessee. Vally Kontidis after establishing her first workshop in Athens (1989) she decided to combine professional creative work with the teaching and demonstrating of jewelry making techniques run under the auspices of the Athens Municipality Workshop. Throughout the 1990s she designed jewelry for several companies. For the last years Vally Kontidis has based her jewelry distribution on a wholesale basis having jewelry being sold in more than 50 stores mainly in Greece and in the Central Europe.