I'm a gal from the small-town midwest where the corn grows high in sticky summer of mid july and the boys drink Busch light around the fire. I grew up lucky as can be with good people around me, lots of trees and space to run free and wanted for nothing.
As a young adult, the wanting came and it came for traveling. I had an itch to leave the small town bubble and learn about the ways of the world beyond me and what I'd always known. latin america's open doors, loud colors, lively people, bright sun and its ever-enchanting language of love called me in and kept me learning for a few years, wandering this way and that, hoping to find a place that felt like home. In the end, I came to find that the only home I'll ever truly know is the one I carry with me wherever I go (but that I absolutely have a latina soul and will contentedly speak Spanish over English anytime, anywhere jajaja).
I witnessed the work of a silversmith in the flesh for the first time in January of 2021 when I met a wise Uruguayan man named Gervasio in his studio shop in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala. I'd admired metalsmithing from afar for years, following creators online, including Kate from Soul and Sapphire who was a friend of a friend. I followed her when she lived in England, and when she moved to Mexico. I decided to send her a message and ask her to let me know if she'd ever be willing to teach me, and it was divinely timed.
A few months later, I began learning to make jewelry with Kate (@soulandsapphire- check out her amazing art) on her patio under the shade of palm trees in the little Mexican surf town where she's made a home. She was kind and patient in my learning process, sharing the magic of her own creative process, her boundless knowledge and experience, and her tools, time and space.
I went to that palm-shaded patio every day for a month and watched and learned and experienced what metalsmithing is - from imagining something in your mind and bringing that conceptual idea from you imagination into this physical realm, bringing the metal under blade and fire and file and endless methodical swings of multiple different types of hammers.
I fell in love with the elements of metalsmithing that month on Kate's patio, surrounded by other apprenticing metalsmiths and listening to good music. Fire and air make the process of soldering feasible, Earth takes shape here in the form of metal and stones mined from below our feet after thousands of years of pressure and heat deep down beneath, and water to quench the thousand-degree metal.
I left Sayulita with a couple of my own tools, a bit of knowledge and experience, three pieces I'd made with my own hands (and lots guidance from someone a bit wiser- thanks, Kate!) and hopes to continue this art of millions of possibilities.
I settled in Guatemala for a year and a half a continued creating, selling my jewelry at the mountain lodge where I worked as a waitress and receptionist. I'm back home in the midwest for the summer with big hopes for business and brighter, better things to come. Thanks for your presence in my process. 