Jane Diaz

I've always loved jewelry, since I was a little girl sneaking into my mother's blue velvet box of treasures. I love jewelry as adornments and tiny objects that accompany you through life, that you can wear or just take out and look at with your sisters and friends and tell all the stories that go with each piece.

I've been collaborating with Nepalese silversmiths for over 20 years. Nepal is a tiny country tucked away in the Himalayas between China and India. It's an exotic jewel box of shrines and temples and prayer flags, monkeys and cows roam the streets and snake charmers sit outside your door as you look at stones!

In this place they make jewelry the same way their father's fathers made it, completely by hand. From blocks of pure silver and gold they mill the metal to plates and wires and build this jewelry from scratch!

I've loved working in this place with these people. It's taught me a great deal. It's been a magical relationship to be able to doodle and draw and have these drawings brought to life by these skilled hands. My mission in this place is to keep their crafts alive.