Spot the Designer - Gabriela Ramirez/ Mexico

What did you want to be when you were a child?

The sea, the ocean...I had that dream many times in my childhood.

When have you started creating jewelry ? How did this passion come about?

When I was seven years old, I began to design and make my own "jewels". In Mexico we used to eat a sort of bread called "bolillo",  so, you must not eat the crumb (center), the "migajon", just the crust (outside of the bread), so, I mixed the inner dough with glue, bouganvillia petals, dead insects, leaves from my Grandmama's "guayaba tree", and then,  modeled different kind of little sculptures that I called my guardians, my friends, my Goddesses...and would hang them in my neck, or around my fingers or even my legs.

I think that this passion, this madness, is as old as my inner Life inside my Mother's womb. She is a watercolor Woman, who gave to me through the amniotic river all this passion for creating and expressing "Beauty" hopelessly.

What was your first project or significant piece for you and from what point of view?

Maybe the "Big Bang" Collection because it was the first time that I modeled melted wax floting in the air, controlling and manipulating the forms with my breath...that needs a lot of skill and patience. It was also the begining of a "no comfort zone" state, so,  I am always searching for new challenges. It keeps me blooming creatively.

How do you charge your batteries? What other passions and creative interests do you have?

I do not charge my batteries, I am a big battery, always breathing, always feeling my creative pulses, and always embracing my pair of uninhibited hands. I am also a ceramist, and a sculptress and also the founder of "Corazon de Venada", a creative and social project supporting Wixaritari (Huicholes) people from my state, Jalisco, Mexico.

What does the connection between manufacturing tradition and contemporary design mean to you?

CONTEMPORARY DESIGN + KEEPING TRADITION AND TECHNIQUE ALIVE is my favorite TANDEM!!!!

Is there a self-portrait piece that speaks most about you?

 Ummmm...I do not think so, I feel almost every day as if I were a "mutant organism" and I am never the same.  It is a sort of creative fermentation, maybe, or evolution?... So, I am the sum of every sculpture that I have created until today. Maybe "at the end" I will achieve an unexpected "self-portrait".

Which material have you not yet used is a temptation and a challenge for you?

Definitely, "la masa de maiz azul"  corn dough, especially the blue one, that I find so seductive and primitive. No one has used it as a body of work for Jewelry; "Tortilla Bling" is my new project that proposes the MEXICAN CORN as a new material in Jewelry. "The Maiz" has been the most important source of food for Mexican people since Prehispanic times. It is also a strong reminder of our true identity, and also by embracing "The Maiz" we are embracing beautiful mythology that reminds us who we really are as a country.

How do you see the future of contemporary jewelry?

As an unpredictable and effervescent field of creative "mushrooms", exploiting and exuding Beauty in new forms.

Find more about the designer Gabriela Ramirez