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Chilean Fair Trade Jewelry - Copper Jewelry - Artisan Jewelry - Jimena Perez Aguirre
Jimena lives with her family in Antofagasta, Northern Chile. She has a workshop in her home and when school is done for the day her children can often be found there helping her out. While Jimena has been making artisan jewelry since she was a child, she only started a fair trade jewelry workshop to help generate income in recent years.
Jimena works mainly with copper and glass creating unique handcrafted jewelry such as necklaces, earrings, rings. Her aim is to preserve and save copper as a working material - it is a cultural heritage of her region. In her view copper jewelry creations deserve more recognition. As a result she is part of an association of 15 copper artisans that aims to preserve this tradition. The techniques she uses are enamelled glass and aged, hammered enamel in her copper jewelry designs. She buys the pieces of copper, cuts them according to the design for her creation, and applies one of these methods. She constantly comes up with new ideas for design and techniques.
Jimena hopes to promote Chilean copper jewelry and at the same time dreams of opening her own shop.
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