Tabra Tunoa
Internationally known artist, Tabra Tunoa, a leader in the Contemporary Ethnic style of Gypsy Jewelry, studied Mayan and Aztec art at the Universities of Mexico City and San Jose, Costa Rica, as well as jewelry design at the Massana Art Institute in Barcelona, Spain in the 1960's and 70's. In 1973, Tabra returned to the United States where she began her design career selling her homemade jewelry on the streets of Berkley, California. As the demand of her jewelry outgrew her capacity to produce it, she began to train young refugees from Asia and Central America to help her in her workshop just north of San Francisco. Many of her first employees are with her today and run the shop while Tabra travels to remote, exotic regions of the third world. There she finds her source of inspiration among the colorful women whose courage, strength and love of beauty, in the face of over-whelming difficulties, still continue to fascinate her.
A percentage of all her jewelry sales are given by Tabra to Nari Uddug Kendra, a woman's organization in Bangladesh through the Isabel Allende Foundation. Each year Tabra travels to Bangladesh to work with the woman there to promote human rights for women and the education of young Bangladeshi women. Tabra continues to design jewelry today with as much enthusiasm as she did on the street so many years ago. She says she has no intentions or interest in ever retiring. Designing jewelry and helping women of the third world will be her passions forever.