Villa Rosario and Some Thoughts

We don't all express ourselves in the same way. Some people talk a lot but can't put two words together in writing. Many writers never think of using a pencil to draw, and there will be those who prefer to dance or sing over doing all of the above.

This post is related to the Villa Rosario jewelry series, but it doesn't aim to showcase the collection, but rather to share things I've experienced while developing it.

I never met my grandfather; he left too soon, and I arrived too late. They say he was a good person, ahead of his time, a tireless worker, an entrepreneur, a lover of art and architecture... he did a lot for Malaga in his day.

I'm lucky that his best way of expressing himself was through his work, and it has always been with me.

I got to know him as a child through my aunts' houses, all designed and built by him. Those houses have a special magic that I recognized as soon as I saw Villa Rosario.

When you're not yet a meter tall and you enter those spaces, you immediately discover that magic because your gaze is much closer to the ground, to those fantasies of colors and geometries that he composed with hydraulic tiles.

They are enormous houses, but as a child, you always felt safe there, because they are a sub-world of details. Details you don't see elsewhere and that could only have been created by someone with a very special sensibility, capacity for observation, knowledge of the material, and love for a job well done. Everything has a reason and is so precisely defined that it fits in your hand.

Over time, I discovered this detail-oriented observation in many members of my family: architects, embroiderers, painters, and homemakers who prepare salads worthy of exhibition.

Retrieving old floor plans that I had seen built long ago and trying to give volume to Villa Rosario's tiles through this jewelry series has made me sharpen my gaze until I'm back 40 centimeters from the ground: recognizing all those geometries, chromatic subtleties, and silhouettes that are cultural footprints; appreciating the small irregularities that are not imperfections, but proof of artisanal work, of perseverance and good craftsmanship, has connected me with that imagery that I value so much.

I value all the work, the effort, and the care behind it; I value the polychromy, the grain, and the texture of each piece, those almost geometric but imperfect shapes.

All of this connects me with what I do and why I do it. I don't create crafts just for the sake of craftsmanship, but also for Design.

Because I am passionate about that artisanal know-how and that detailed observation of the present that connects me so much to my roots, and because I believe that all of it adds value, uniqueness, and identity to Design.

Is there a "Made in Spain" issue, of proposing another way of doing things that have little to do with fast fashion? Yes, of course, but talking only about that falls short.

There's much more behind it: preserving the craft of the artisan and the profession of the designer, creating special pieces for those who wear them, with which they can identify, zooming in, looking slowly, and delighting in how things are conceived. These are the reasons why I hope to continue designing new pieces by thinking of details that fit in one hand.