My identify is Caitlin Velázquez-Fagley and I’m the maker behind Aguja y Clavo Jewellery Designs. Aguja y Clavo interprets to Needle and Nail from Spanish; I named it that as a result of my father builds adobe homes and my mom is a quilter. I started my firm in 2016 and am primarily based out of Central New Mexico.
I began doing beadwork after I was 15 years previous. Masters like Margo Area and Leah Henriquez Prepared taught me about bead-weaving, intricate peyote sew, and bead embroidery. I used to be fully into making jewellery, however was too younger to see that it might flip right into a profession. I went on to review structure in faculty, however it wasn’t my calling. Shortly after graduating I moved to Spain to show English for a number of years and did loads of touring round Europe alone. Once I returned, I labored development and liked it, however nonetheless had an itch for jewellery. In 2015 I took my first silversmithing class with Kristin Diener and that’s what introduced me again into jewelry-making.
My authentic mission was to determine tips on how to marry beadwork with metalwork. I discovered that I might do bead embroidery and bead-weaving strategies and mix them with metallic that I had stamped, riveted, and shaped with hammers. It was all very low-tech on the time, however I needed to know one of the best ways to work with metallic whereas maintaining beadwork in my designs. I discovered a program at Santa Fe Neighborhood Faculty that provided jewellery courses, and continued taking courses there to enhance my metalsmithing abilities.
A couple of issues occurred without delay that modified each the best way I design, and the route of my firm. I gave a lecture in entrance of a jewelry-making affiliation and realized in the course of the lecture that I didn’t have a strong function with my work. For almost three months I started researching and asking myself questions on how higher to proceed. Round this time, I additionally met my muse. I met the lady who liked (and nonetheless loves) my work however needed me to go larger and bolder. That was after I realized that I wanted to make items that have been assertion pieces- ones that instructed a narrative or recalled a second in historical past, and have been the one one among their variety. Basically I needed to restructure my marketability by making items that basically spoke to girls and spoke to their type and identification. This meant that I needed to concentrate on moments in historical past, retell that story by way of jewellery, and conjure photographs/emotions throughout the wearer to make her have a way of her previous all whereas sustaining her impartial type.
I work in Collections, which means that I create items primarily based on a central theme and develop a set of design parts inside that framework. My work is totally different in that I create solely one among every design. I’m consistently experimenting with a set of concepts and jewelry-making strategies to attain an general feeling or vibe to every Assortment. My newest physique of labor is known as Helen of Troy Assortment and I’ve been designing items as if Helen of Troy (the primary feminine character from The Iliad and The Odyssey) was the lady sporting my work. She was a queen first in Sparta, then in Troy, so I’ve used imagery from each Historic Greece and Troy to create items which can be each nostalgic but up to date. I can plan, analysis, and anticipate how a Assortment will prove, however it’s all the time altering, all the time shocking me, and I let the method of making simply stream and be within the second. I normally occur upon comfortable coincidences and that’s how my jewellery is made.
There are various layers to every piece, many questions I need to reply to myself as I’m making my work like, “How does this relate to my theme? Is that this a press release? Am I creating with my muse in thoughts? Who is that this piece for? Is that this precisely what must be made proper now?” Then I’ll ask myself the technical questions like, “what’s the most important piece I could make, whereas maintaining it light-weight? How will this really feel towards the physique? What’s one of the best ways to assemble this? What items will be bought (ie beads) and what parts have to be handmade?” My thoughts is consistently swirling with ideas and visions and concepts and sometimes I can’t sustain, however I don’t obsess over that. If the thought was meant to be, then it’ll return to me and I’ll discover a option to make it.
The larger I make my items, the extra I take into consideration and am impressed by individuals who reside massive. I’m interested in the individuals who converse up, stand out, reside out loud, dream massive, and goal excessive. It’s fascinating to design with that in thoughts. We have a tendency to show individuals into legends after they’ve handed and I believe we’ve received all of it improper. I like to think about my items as glorifying, or no less than highlighting, what makes the wearer particular and distinctive on this second, at present, proper now.
