Rita Martinez

Recently I have felt the pressing need to find a common thread that would lead me to represent, through contemporary jewelry, the depth, the essence of memory, the unconscious, and the purity of nature. I came across something majestic, magical, and almost unknown: the imagination of the natives of North America. Objects, animals, plants, and atmospheric phenomena are transformed into magical and extraordinary because each one possesses a power—be it active, like the wind that pushes the clouds, or passive, like a stone, a piece of wood, a bone, or a horn, with its strength of resistance and endurance. I thought I could do a rereading from the perspective of contemporary jewelry and give recognition and importance to those amulets, tools, and ornaments that for centuries have been part of the culture of the natives of North America, where the sacred spirit of the wakan embodies the ancestral bond, now almost forgotten, between man and nature.

THE CIRCLE WAMPUM, Collection: WAKAN

Necklace Resin, Wood, Bronze, Cotton Thread, Natural Pigments