What made me decide to become a jeweler?
My journey started in 2008 when my husband and I went on a little adventure in Mexico. We decided to do a road trip starting from Cancun through to Guerrero and ending up in Nuevo Leon, fun thing about me, I love the jungle, the amazing pyramids, culture and colors and animals you find through Central America.
We went through Taxco, a town of pink and stones and silver (a lot of silver) the Spanish took a lot and there is still silver in Taxco, the pink church in the middle of the zocalo (town square) the mariachi singing their songs, children playing and running around, the smell of churros filled the cold air and hundreds of people started to come out of work, covered in what I thought was coal and dirt. Me the little out raged European went to check it out and there it was, a workshop!
I been obsessing about this ever since it's been 15 years, and it's never ending. How do you make this stuff? from hand raising silver to CAD. The process is amazing and it is literally one of the oldest professions in the world that remain largely unchanged until very recently. The knowledge pool we have to explore in jewelry making spans for the duration of human history, as the obsession to all things shiny is nothing new.
I went home from that trip and decided to change careers and go back to school, I convinced one of the professors at the Birmingham Jewellery School to let me in to their program and I have worked very hard, I didn't know which way up a saw blade went or even how to draw, let alone have the money to buy all the supplies needed. But being a jeweler is literally what I am meant to be, I cannot name anything else that a rather do, and I still have some much to learn. For me is an outlet of nerdy side particularly when it comes to technology and 3D design, it fulfills my curiosity of history it allows me to build on previous knowledge and it allows creativity and most importantly is a fun profession.
I get to play with amazing stones, to study diamonds play with CAD but also work on the bench, people get to wear my art and pass it on to their children as an act of self-expression, and all because once I saw a bunch of dirty guys walked out of a tiny door in Mexico.
Where did I work before? - A bank in Halsted, Essex
When I say travelling is valuable, I do mean it. You don't need to have a lot of money to travel we did travel on a very small budgets and we a lot of fun, but most importantly it gave us is a perspective into a different world, life and points of view, it helps us grow and learn to appreciate others and for me it literally changed my life.
A few trips that I remember fondly:
I never really appreciated birds until this little nutter dragged me to the jungle to look for a Blue Tanager and Hummingbirds.
How did they make this in Peru, in the middle of the mountains with very little tools is still a mind-blowing situation for me... I mean look at how good these are!
This place is of great significance, the edge of the Roman world. The biggest army in the world and yet they couldn't get Scotland. Think about that for a minute....
Fun fact! I was born in Brasil and let me tell you, the food! The food is good! I got to travel back there and honestly it taste as good as I remember.... Go, go to the market and get yourself a pastel and guarana!
Let's keep travelling, learning and experiencing new things....
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