Thank you, Carmela

Last Friday we threw a farewell dinner to a long-time employee, our beloved Carmela, as she started a new chapter in her life and retired. She is among those who greatly inspire me - both in my life and my work. This blog is dedicated to her. 

Every artist or designer has a unique group of “right hands”; I, too, have people working for my brand behind the scenes. Those people keep me moving forward and are fundamental to the creation of Ronit Furst frames. Today I want to tell you about our precious Carmela.

Carmela, born in Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, spent most of her life working for the Kibbutz’s eyeglasses factory (Galil Optic) and in the last 14 years, has been working with us at “Art Optic”.

Carmela was always hard-working and devoted. Her many years working at the factory did not take aways from her inherently young, positive spirit. We immediately connected over our shared love to “roll our sleeves” and engage with all the necessary fieldwork. 

Carmela has this rare quality – the ability to understand colors and capture their nuances. This unique gift has been vital to our frames creating process. We never had any differences, we both spoke the same color language and Carmela was excited to follow every idea I had, no matter how crazy it was.

Another exceptional talent Carmela has is the ability to translate my designs and patterns to a clear message you can pass to the painters (who need to accurately copy my drawings and materialize it on the frames, just like learning how to copy one’s handwriting). She translated my designs into practice and to highly organized sheets describing the precise measure, explanation, colors and clear instructions.

When an exhibition was approaching, she recognized the importance and rose to the occasion every time; devotedly organized the products and assisted me in complex packaging procedures.

Beyond the help and professional advice I got from her, I learnt a lot about life.

I won’t get into too much detail, but Carmela had her fair share of whirlwinds, but she still maintains this image of a strong, positive, optimistic woman who always sees the bright side. She takes care of herself and her family, her house and garden and cooks deliciously.

Carmela has reached her 70’s and rightfully decided to get herself some rest and finally retire. At first, I felt like I was orphaned, but then, I realized how much sense it made for her.

Thus, with mixed feelings I’m saying goodbye to Carmela as a colleague, but not as a friend. While letting go of my right hand is hard, I cannot thank her enough for the years I’ve had her with me and letting go willingly, with joy.

I wanted to share this with you to allow you to get to know (just a bit) about the people working behind the scenes who make creating the eyeglasses you love possible.

Thank you,

Ronit.