New pieces in my Arbol de Vida Collection

Since I started making and designing my jewelry I have been making various trees of life in different forms. I always love the symbolic meaning of the "Arbol de Vida" and it has been my passion to make them all the time.

The tree of life represent the union between earth and heaven. It was said that the founder gods in Mexico came down to earth through the trees. I love to make them using flowers and birds because they represent new life, hope and love.


My latest piece is going to be a necklace and I am still working in it. It gives me joy to see this piece come alive little by little.

©2012 Lorena Angulo

My other pieces in this collection are one more brooch and earrings. Every piece I design is unique and have the same feeling of nostalgia about the wonderful folk art from my beautiful country, Mexico.

©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (silver)

©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (silver)

Amor
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (silver)

Arbol de Vida Esperanza
(tree of life hope)
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3 (silver)

The making of my "Tree of Life" brooch

Going back to my first days when I played with metal clay, I still remember how confusing this material was for me at the beginning. I already started taking silversmithing classes at Southwest School of Art and my mind was use to the rough playing with hammers, jeweler saws and metal sheets. Metal clay was such a confusion but I knew I will like it.

I played with metal clay two or three times and then I just decided to leave it on the side and focus on my metalsmithing work. It was until I took a casting class that I totally understood what this wonderful new material will do for me.

Casting is an option but I did not have the equipment to do it in my home, this is why metal clay was the perfect option.

I love to hand sculpt and carve and metal clay will give me the amazing opportunity to make pieces I have always had in my design note book. My designs are very three dimensional and with lots of details, metal clay will make all my ideas come to reality.

Since that day I have not been able to stop creating with metal clay, I still do some fabrication work but most of my pieces are made with metal clay. I absorbed myself into this way of working with the material, time can fly by and I feel like I have only been minutes working. I am so relax and happy hand sculpting  and carving every detail in all my work and finally yesterday I finished my first brooch I made with my tree of life design.

The Tree of Life (Arbol de Vida) is one of my symbolic pieces, I have made it into earrings, pendants, necklaces and cuffs. Now it was my turn to make it as a brooch.

I am a passionate about detailing my work with a lot of attention in every side of my pieces. Spending time to make nice and clean finishing in the front is as important as taking your time to do the same on the back. I am not only talking about having a secret detail on the back, I am talking about having a clean and nice finishing. Craftsmanship is very important and we all must take our time to do so.

ARBOL DE VIDA
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3

ARBOL DE VIDA
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3

ARBOL DE VIDA
©2012 Lorena Angulo
PMC3

My beginnings

I clearly remember my first time working with a new material that looked like clay but was not clay at all. I just could not believe this clay was in reality pulverized pure silver mixed with organic binders to make the metal have a consistency of clay.
I was starting taking metalsmithing classes at  Southwest School of Art in San Antonio with the wonderful Chair of the department (metals) at that moment, Claire Holliday. She mentioned to me about this great material that she tough I will love to learn how to use it. I was very curious to see this "magical" clay and decided I will be taking her introduction class. When the class started I was anxious to get my hand into this material and see first hand what was all this about.
I do have to be honest with you when I first put my hands into the clay I was so stressed because I have an obsession of having my hands clean ALL the time. The clay was in my hands and fingers and I had to clean them very often, I did not realized I was washing away SILVER !!!! The class was fun but I was not very much convinced about it, mostly because I did not like the idea of my hands getting dirty. I continued with my metals classes and left the metal clay on the side for a while. I just did not know what to do with that material, it was until I got in another class with Claire Holliday that I finally realized the great potential this amazing material has. Since then I have been creating most of my work with metal clay (PMC3) and every year that goes by I can see through my work how much I have progressed. 

These are some of my first pieces I made with silver metal clay. As you can see my obsession with hearts has always been present in my work.


The Milagro Heart at the bottom left corner was made during my first ever class with metal clay.




Next to this piece you can see a hollow carved bead, my first bead I ever made too.




The earrings were the first time also using a stone in the jewelry.




The heart on top was made because someone love my first heart (the one at the bottom) but I already had sold it so I had to recreate another in a bigger size.

This rosary was made a very long time ago !!! I used my first cross I made during my first class and a center piece also made on my first class.
I can definitively see how much my work has change since the time I made this piece.  


When my teacher and mentor, Claire Holliday, retired from Southwest School of Art; the students decided to make pins or pendants for her as a way to say Thank You to her great teaching and guidance all these years. I could have done the piece with sterling metal sheet but I decided to make it with metal clay since she was the person who taught me how to work with it. 

Later on more types of metal clay came to the market, first was bronze clay. I was eager to try the new clay and I played in my studio with it making these pieces.

It is so great to go back at my pictures and see what I was making more than 5 years ago, very few of this pieces are with me now. 
I can see how with a lot of practice and not getting discourage because maybe something did not fired correctly, I was able to mature and get better.
Now I do not care if my hands are dirty any more, on the other hand I WANT to get dirty with the clay and create, create, create !!!!


How was your experience when you started creating your art?