From the Earth: Rafier Vera
In any street of the urbanization Los Chorros in Caracas, we find a small pink wall that hides the school workshop of Rafier Vera. Enter this house is to reach the home of this artist and talk to Rafier is to access their inner world: a territory of mechanisms, devices and machines loaded with stories and anecdotes that he shares with his students and everyone who comes.
Rafier's pieces are like the space he inhabits: generous in meaning and heterogeneous in function, "things" located in a chaotic territory that is between the sculpture, the object and the jewel, elements with tiny mechanisms that speak to us joyfully and directly of him and his relationship with his environment. They are "Containers of the soul" that make us an invitation to use more the heart and less the brain, necklaces that are armed with the spines of a porcupine taken from the snout of its dog, objects made by machines with love and from love. Because that's all Vera does, from her teaching activity to her artistic work.
Born in Caracas on July 1, 1970, Rafier is a self-taught and, like many jewelers in Venezuela, has a somewhat "eclectic" training. He studies Insurance and later computer science, in parallel he is admitted to study sculpture at the Armando Reverón University Plastic Arts Institute. These last studies do not end since he travels to Barcelona, Spain where, after working as a modelmaker and goldsmith, he studies at the Massana School. Among the acknowledgments he has received are: Winner of the First National Goldsmith Show in Venezuela in 2005, member of the Peruvian Silver Board among others
- Elementum Joya: At what age did you decide you wanted to be a goldsmith?
- Rafier Vera: When I was about 9 years old there was a man who worked for my father who made bracelets with ceramics. I spent a certain amount of time with him, took his tweezers and tools and assembled things. There I realized that I liked to work with my hands. Some years later, I met a boy who was a kind of legend of the area where I lived. It was a legend because he had supposedly been a prisoner. I did not know him, but one day I saw him and I knew it was him. There we started talking. He taught me to identify metals and cut them with scissors. Some time later, we started to produce pieces and sold them in "Arte Murano" since there we found some buses full of Canadian tourists who bought what we were doing. With that we had money to buy beer, cigarettes ... He was very young, he was wearing a fringed jacket and long hair.
- Elementum Joya: From there you were learning techniques?
- Rafier Vera: Yes, but then a boy who moved from Uruguay to Venezuela and his brother taught me to dig and do other things because they already had experience welding and making jewelry. A while later we set up a workshop in the back of my parents' house. I remember a particular day that we read the newspaper, it was a 13th day: the dollar went from 4 to 12 bolivars, it was the year 1983 ... Anyway, for my parents it was rare that I spent so much time making bracelets and necklaces. In the end they ended up accepting it and helping me buy some things: my first pendant motor was given to me by my father when I was 19 years old ... Later I acquired some knowledge thanks to my first contacts buying metals in a place called "Platinum". There I would sit down to talk with the other artisans and ask them how to do certain things. They were old jewelers from the center, very receptive and open, who gave me advice from which I learned many techniques just by listening to them.
- Elementum Joya: and what about formal studies ...?
- Rafier Vera: I was always studying, my dad told me that I had to study because of the jewelry I will not going to live. I started studying insurance and then computer and art in the Armando Reverón art school. It was a tough time: I studied computer science at Los Teques, art in La Reverón and made jewelry. The art school was not easy, at first it was a shock to go to photography, to installation, to sculpture being a jeweler and a goldsmith by trade. I have always believed that the plastic language is important but the ability to express with the skill, with the job, is much more. But I opened the doors to all that knowledge, I did not play hard. Going through all that poetic and plastic training is important, but I recognized in me a person who had a domain in a resource: silver.
- Elementum Joya: In that time or before did you attend a jewelry school?
Rafier Vera: I attended the school of Patrick Doffini. At that time I saw fashion magazines and I wondered how the jewels could be for the models of the photos. He also tried to reproduce pieces that were equal to each other .... I attended the Patrick workshop on the recommendation of a colleague and I did it because I did not know the terms. I taught in a school in San Antonio de Los Altos called "Yagrumo y Arte". and I did not know what the techniques were called or what the formal way of teaching was like. I start teaching at that school and one of the agreements I reach is that they pay me a course because I did not have the capacity to give the correct information to the students. That was the first time I sat at a jewelry table. I knew it was high and that the metal did not fall on the floor, but I had never worked in one ... After that I participated in a workshop dictated by Rafael Bello and he taught me other things. There I began to wonder about the possibilities of metal through the organic pieces I was developing since I did not want to do the typical things. A very dear companion if he developed all the techniques of crimping, riveting, gilding and drawing what he was going to do in class the day before. I used to say to myself, "But if the drawing is so beautiful, so that it will make the jewel, it's better to leave it that way" ... haha
Earings.
One of the first pieces of Rafier Vera.
Source: Photograph supplied by the artist
- Elementum Joya: So you did not draw?
- Rafier Vera: I do not draw, I find it hard to draw. I am a collector, I have a box full of things that I find and then I assemble
- Elementum Joya: What are your affective triggers? How do you approach the creative process?
- Rafier Vera: I am very dissatisfied and rebellious ... maybe because I am the middle child ... I think I grew up very independent and. That makes you think a lot always. I could say that I am in a constant internal dialogue. I always ask myself questions. What am I doing? What do I try to do? I am also quite restless and I have had many stages and explorations: the organic part, after the organic part came the vertebrates, the mechanisms, the toys .... in relation to the mechanisms I remember that my dad at the age of 19 took me to a "chivera" and told me: "that car there is yours". It was a beautiful Volkswagen that was like new but did not turn on and some pieces were missing. From there, I learned mechanics and that began to solve some questions about the vertebrate: how it is articulated, what is a kneecap. Although that I started to develop later.
- Elementum Joya: Is the micro mechanic workshop that you dictate in your school created by you?
- Rafier Vera: Yes, it's my experience. There is a book that shows some joints and closures, but I discovered that recently. This book collects some of the mechanisms applicable to jewelry: rotula, crosshead, thread, screw ... What I was developing in my work I decided to share, I have always done.
- Elementum Joya: How was the process in La Massana? Were you studying in La Reverón, were not you ...?
- Rafier Vera: That was a time when I was somewhat stuck here in Venezuela. I was traveling 3 years before studying there and I was living in goldsmithing. I went to Vigo and there I started selling some organic pieces in the streets, but it was a very hard life...Then I went to Barcelona and started to identify where the goldsmiths were. Then a friend told me about La Massana. At first I did not like the school because many people with money attended and I am a jeweler by trade, on the street, not in school. Before that, I worked at a firm that made jewelry for department stores and for franchises. There they asked me to design a first series of jewelry based on some primitive sculptures. Then we developed some astrological jewels. We made the twelve stars and sold them in a network of stores in Catalonia. They paid me two or three months later, although I got a bit screwed up because they did not fully comply with their part of the deal. With that, and despite this, i started at La Massana. I entered and began to learn new techniques, especially to melt that was what interested me most at that time. Later I saw classes with Ramón Puig Cuyas, he opened my mind because he told us that jewelry had nothing to envy to any art, that we jewelers had the opportunity to talk to the jewel, to talk to society. It was a good experience ... I remember that it came with my necklaces with rare materials that were not applied to the jewelry at that time: latex, garters, dissolving materials ... I started to develop the work and its theme, to compromise my spirit from the block of loneliness and to develop my plastic language through the "Containers of the Soul".
Soul Containers
Source: Photographs supplied by the artist
- Rafier Vera: Then I started doing "Porta fetiches". I traveled with a box full of letters, things that my friends and family sent me. I had the photos, the postcards they sent me ... it was full of fetishes and I did not find what to do with them. What do I do with this box? Who I am? Why do I have to carry this, this box, with this pile of things? The work was developed by that void that exists between the human and the aesthetic. I began to realize that the jewels were beginning to contain and I discovered that people also felt that way. I emptied my bottles and people commented "here I would put poison, cocaine, the photo of such a person." ... Well, the jewels come empty: a reliquary, a picture frame, a perfumer ... and that possibility of selling something empty and not something that he says I love you, I love you, I adore you, but a work that you have as a user that gives it a meaning, that you have to make it work; It came to the people. That was my first plastic proposal along with a necklace that spoke of internal and external aesthetics. Then I developed a chain of leagues that moved, something half sadomasochistic with a connection between the mouth and the penis. That piece was taken to Barna Joya. At that time I was not formally in Ramón Puig's class and he told me "and you are not going to do anything?" And I answered "Professor, I have already made the pieces". I took them, saw them and was pleased with the work.
Portafetiches (1997).
Source: Photograph supplied by the artist
"Prosthesis"
part of the Catalog of the spring of the design 1999 of the Escola Massana.
Latex piece with inlays and silver clasp.
Source: Photo provided by the artist
- Elementum Joya: When does La Massana ends and you decide to return to Venezuela?
- Rafier Vera: When my ex-wife becomes pregnant. She insisted that we come to Venezuela. I arrived without work, I bought a car from a cousin and I started to sell the fruits that were planted in a farm that my father-in-law had in Petaquire. I had no contacts with the goldsmiths here. Also my daughter was going to be born and there were all the expenses of maternity, diapers, in addition she had the workshop disassembled ... in reality she did not have a workshop. There I spoke with a colleague and a very good friend and I said "I have this business: we are going to buy some casting machines and we are going to melt and give classes". The school was called "Fusion." I wanted to put "Falso Joya" but my colleague's family did not like the name. They were contributing some money and they said that fake was not a serious name. I wanted them to understand that the false was the material, that the genuine was the design and the material was the excuse. They did not understand that, they insisted that the false word did not give seriousness to the business. Then we visited "La Escondida" (a network of jewelry stores in Venezuela) and they told us "Here they have 7 kg of silver to work with". That was in 1999, it was Mexican silver: bags with chains and other damaged pieces that they were accumulating. We took a lot the first month and in that time we had to melt, reproduce, sand ... We did not rest. In addition, my daughter was newborn and I had all the problems you have at 29 years: party, work and the body does not give so much. From there, I learned to melt on a large scale. Later I worked with a designer who produced the pieces that Carolina Herrera used in her fashion shows. Other jewelers also worked there. I remember that I made a design, I was paid and days later there were 20 equal pieces. I realized that it was a very unfriendly operation since I was not paid for the pieces as design.
- Elementum Joya: Do you work alone?
- Rafier Vera: I like to form teams of work although sometimes I have taken ideas that are not mine to develop some line that interests me. One always borrows elements from others in order to complement or to develop other forms and concepts ... I have tried to work with two hands, in fact I have several projects.
- Elementum Joya: Tell us about the exhibitions in which you have participated ...
- Rafier Vera: When I won the First National Goldsmith Show in Venezuela, the participants were many young jewelers rejected by the National Fire Arts Hall of Valencia ... Some of us criticized that instance a lot because you have to have a career to be rewarded. It seems that there is no discussion about the jewel or about the art. From that, I considered that I had to actively participate, so I was invited to the second room and proposed a discussion topic: "Jewelry as a plastic language." I also participated in the Youth room with FIA assembling jewelry as art. That work was called "Seven doors" which were the seven doors of my soul and was made up of seven objects, all hanging and although they could not be worn because they were made of the same material and with the same methods as jewelry. Unfortunately, the critics did not talk about my proposal even though my work was the second most visited.
"Primordially Metal" or "Pollar".
Assembly part with micromechanics and chiselling, sausage and welding techniques with vera wood, silver glass, iron and porcelain.
Source: (Ministry of Culture, 2005)
Serie "Seven doors"
Fuente: Rafier Vera
Serie "Seven doors"
Fuente: Rafier Vera
Serie "Seven doors - Agony"
Fuente: Rafier Vera
Series "Seven Doors: Much brain, little heart"
Source: Rafier Vera
Series "Seven Doors: Hippocratic Oath"
Source: Rafier Vera
Series "Seven Doors: My Altar"
Source: Rafier Vera
Series "Seven Doors: The solution is bigger than the problem"
Source: Rafier Vera
Series "Seven Doors: The solution is bigger than the problem"
Source: Rafier Vera
- Elementum Joya: Were jewelers giving in? Was it evolving, changing the work?
- Rafier Vera: There's a lot of criticism because they see a piece and maybe they do not understand it. There, I show them the work I say "play with it" ... They are curious about what you do and you realize that the proposal is consistent. The work has changed the subject and materials. First it was the glass and the container, then I worked modifying the glass a bit for suggestions and expository commitments. Assembling glass for me was a challenge. How do I cut glass? How do I repay it? How do I make it so that it does not break? What are the techniques used to assemble it? Can I weld silver on glass without breaking it? Then I started to investigate how it melts, although it did not melt the glass, but I wanted to know how it resisted heat. Pussy, make a complete necklace of bottle nozzles all welded, assemble, weld rounds in a giant jellyfish ... these are technical challenges, but when you see the result you are satisfied.
Parliamentary Medusa.
Assembly object in silver and glass bottles.
These pieces were participatory, people placed messages inside the bottles.
Rafier Vera: Then, when my youngest children were born and I had a stage of games. I worked a lot with toys, reliquaries and mechanisms using acrylic and color.
Piece in acrylic.
Source: Rafier Vera
Piece in acrylic.
Source: Rafier Vera
- Elementum Joya: But you are conservative in your work ...
- Rafier Vera: My lights have always been against the use of metal as the exclusive material of jewelry. I believe that jewelry is the trade, the making, the development of the jeweler's table through the use of techniques, arguments, assemblies ... I believe that in doing and in manufacturing methods I am conservative since I believe it is important to preserve the techniques of work, but the materials have to change since we are living in a world in constant evolution, we can not continue using gold and precious stones and everyone wants to use those materials despite the fact that there are other proposals. We live in a society where young people do not have a conception of the jewel related to their environment, their experiences or their feelings. Very few people dare to put a little plastic thing on the neck. We have had little diffusion in Venezuela and I believe that anything that spreads the jewel, the need to be, to express oneself, to say; maintains the culture. One does not see boys with jewelry. Do you see boys with jewels in the street? That is why I would like to give classes in schools with more diffusion and reach and then create a teacher training school, so that trainers teach in other jewelry schools. For now concepts and art are not as important but to spread the trade so that people have the tools to work.
Utilitarian objects developed by "Taller de la tierra"
Rafier Vera / Alicia Armand.
Source: Rafier Vera
- Elementum Joya: And how did the Taller escuela de la Tierra start?
- Rafier Vera: It was through Alicia Armand. She had two Peruvians working with cap and silver, doing some very well finished work with both materials. When I met Alicia I saw that it was a good opportunity because she had a great handling of materials and resources that I could use to develop my work. On the other hand, I could learn other things since she told me about the carvings of Barquisimeto, the coconuts, the palms, the indigenous ikaras and how she wanted me to integrate the silver to those elements to give light to precious woods and native materials. After Alicia retired and I transformed the workshop into a workshop - school since teaching what has been learned is a way of trying to give back what they have given ... In addition, I like teaching because I realized that I learn more, that I learned more, giving classes than receiving them. When you have a restless student you learn more from him than from any teacher because he demands that you investigate. When I worked with Alicia, she could have told me many things that she wanted from the piece but when she was wearing it and she said "This is what I wanted," you know what are you putting at work, what are you trying to think about? what she wants, to read it. With a student, it happens the same. When I have more advanced students who start asking about development, they are asking more of me than technique. So, sometimes I doubt, but sometimes I give them what they demand because I think they can do it. Having a student or two like that is always pleasant even though I know that everyone comes to learn, to discover; that's why I'm always seeing what I can add to the course so that it changes, evolves and has a faster result.
- Elementum Joya: What other experiences have you had as a teacher, trainer, teacher?
- Rafier Vera: I taught at the Museum of Contemporary Art. A colleague was directing the education area of that institution and invited me to give some workshops. I proposed to give the workshop of micro mechanics with my tools since the museum did not have. When I arrived there were 30 students: too many people for such a workshop. The fact is that I saw them all and said "I am not able to throw any student out of here to give the workshop. I know that the museum received them all and already charged. What I can do is give theory of Jewelry "From that moment I put on the blackboard and started talking. There were 4 hours of questions and answers: if the kneecap, this rivet here, this rivets here, I did this ... finally a man told me, "I had never learned as much of jewelry as today" ... Unfortunately the teaching of jewelry in Venezuela has become something else since we from private schools are in a market of courses where people comment "I did the course of such, I did the course of which". In addition, we are living in an environment where there is no dissemination of what is being done and there is no noble treatment of goldsmiths: one is a supplier of merchandise for sale in exhibition spaces. I believe that the Earth School Workshop should be opened not only for the goldsmiths, but for society, for the new requirements of the country we have. We do not have young minds, the well-off people are the ones who do, the ones who pay for the courses, the ones who have the tools. We have to open other paths so that the trade can be kept alive.
- Elementum Joya: So the challenge now is to make the training of trainers school and encourage young people to learn the trade
- Rafier Vera: Yes, but how do you do that? Through the State. One tries to access those instances and the policy is involved. In addition you have to meet a lot of requirements. For example, I was recently called to do a work for the Southern Biennial of Bolívar State and they gave me the guidelines of what they want me to do ... You ask me for an educational project and I ask it, but if you ask me a piece where I commit myself, you have to know my work. So I have to sit down with them to discuss because what is the interest of the State and what is my interest? The interest of the state is to give added value to metals and create a gold production in Venezuela to be able to export it? I imagine that is what they seek and aspire to do with the institutions they have created. You get to see the international numbers and you realize that we should have done this years ago. For example is India that has a billion inhabitants, is the first producer of gold in the world and has no mines, only work gold and do it as they want because they trained people, by castes? yes, it is questionable What children work from 8 years? Yes, they do and that is the reality of the underdeveloped countries, the children work from children. Here you see boys who do not play, who eat from the garbage, who are asking for money in the streets: that is what we are living. But on the other hand there are young people who are 25 years old and do not know how to do anything. That is why we have to create alternatives, we have to find that these small municipal schools, that all this project that is already formulated, be executed. And that is possible in every corner of Caracas, in the country ... It is possible, I have the project. The issue is that you have to meet with the people who have decision-making power and approve the resources ... I have sat with boys at tables in state complexes.
- Elementum Joya: Where did you do that?
- Rafier Vera: In the Amenidades urbanas on Avenida Bolivar in Caracas, in the El Pedregal neighborhood in Chacao and in the Revenga municipality with the Santa Teresa Foundation. There we started a project with the people of the community that financed it in the beginning Santa Teresa and then the Land Ministries. Then we made an exhibition that was called something like "Jewels of this land."
- Elementum Joya: Do you write, reflect, do you theorize about jewelry?
- Rafier Vera: I've done it ... every time I sit down to write texts that I have to publish or that invite me to an exhibition to say a few words. Although I feel that I am crazier than before, that is the reality, and one of the things that keeps me judged within the trade is to teach since I can live the whole process of creation through other hands and other concerns ... Nor has there was a bibliographical inquiry or a search for references because I have never used many since I think I came from the poetics of thinking, feeling, living rather than referring or researching to develop proposals.
- Elementum Joya: What do you understand by contemporaneity?
- Rafier Vera: I do not know what contemporaneity is. If you start asking me about that or trying to think about what contemporaneity is, I would not know what to say to you since I really do not know if it is of my interest. What do you understand about contemporaneity? The way of thinking, the relationship of society with its surroundings and the jewel? I have always had the basic concepts of whether it is ostentatious or not, if it complies with what I want to say or not, if it has an allegorical aesthetic to another occupation such as medicine or architecture ... My associations are more for visual references and there the materials fulfill their function according to their shape their weight, their color, their volume, their touch ... they are visual and sensory things
Interview conducted by Hadasa Noguera and Andreína Rodríguez-Seijas for Elementum Joya
Source: Ministerio de la Cultura. (14 de Agosto de 2005). 1er Salón Nacional de Orfebrería. 1er Salón Nacional de Orfebrería. Caracas, Distrito Capital, Venezuela: CONAC.
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