In the finest steps the skillful navvy receives the seed which has been reduced to dust,.rubs it over a panoramic tilted plank pouring moisten over it all the time; then, the worldly debate in it, disolv..
Gold Artisans, Filigree Artists of Colombia
In the best steps the skillful worker receives the devotee which has been reduced to dust,rubs it over a sweeping tilted plank pouring moisten over it all the time; then, the carnal debate in it, disolved by the water, runs down the plank while the one that has the gold in it stays on the board due to its load Repeating this a digit of times, top he rubs it softly and pressing lightly with loose-texture sponges it takes away the porous and secular matter until all is left is genuine gold dust
When I proverb Aicardo Lpez working it was like no 2000 years hold passed since Diodoro of Sicily, the Greek historian from the 1st century b.C, described like this how the senescent egipcians extracted gold from the bowels of the Earth. Aicardos tools, a companion in his 50s with the tan and wrinkles of someone used to working beneath the sun, were so traditional like the egipcians: a species of beaten wooden box, over it a strainer for the larger stones and the only testimonies we were in the 21st century were a construction navvy helmet that served as a wet bucket and a shovel There, at the Cauca river shore a few meters from the senescent Puente de Occidente, that minute character flair down over his utensils and reasonably imprisoned by the tempest clouds and the mountains that haunt the river canyon, was a faithful reminder of the indian tradition of paying welcome to their gods through gold
Of all Colombian indian gold tribes none settled this portion of the mid-Cauca river valley. Southward up the alike valley the Quimbaya indians created their beautiful figurines by the absent wax process They molded their figurines in beeswax canopy it with a layer of clay and putting all this in a ignite the wax melted out of the clay obstruct leaving the remove massage inside ready to drop in the tumbaga, a copper and gold alleation impartial like its done nowadays, conceivably getting the hole of one of the superior poporos inspired in disposition North of the town of Santa Fe de Antioquia was the indian culture of Urab who molded also normal representations, specially animals with raised tails or two-headed birds. However the blessing filigree instructors, the art of creating figures with gold thread, in Santa Fe de Antioquia werent the indian gold artisans but kin from Mompox where curiously gold was not mined but hoarded up in the era when the Spaniards stripped their colonies from all the gold they could gather. Through situation the Santa Fe citizens learned tatting many times passed from engendering to engendering like Anibal Ramos tells it: I have been doing this for around 18 years This is like hereditary My brother taught me whom was taught by an uncle himself If any of my children has this knack then Ill teach him too
Filigree is an aged art and the greeks practiced already in the 5th century b.C after working with granulation where tiny gold balls are form up to earth chewed designs in relief
At the Jaime Benitez shop, one of the traditional last names of Santa Fe filigree, an artisan passes a gold bar some 2 inches long through a tool with rollers matching to a spaghetti cutter The gold bar, one of the most malleable metals in the world, stretches and stretches unimaginably to the atom when it becomes a thick thread that the artisan then passes through ruby discs with different callibers until what was a minor gold obstruct is now a thread as thin as hair. Now the true art begins With this thread many things can be done Braided for example, it gives a beautiful relief Benitez, meanwhile, is working on a circle for a quinceaera. Life for the people of Santa Fe is pronounced like a pendulum by their gold regalia The newborn receives a gold bracelet, then comes First Communion, fifteen years in the point of girls, graduation, marriage. In Santa Fes void womens ears and hands are represented all the special days of their lives The traditional designs reign: the woven trifling ball, that is not seen anywhere else, everything we do: the scarcely rose, the seldom tomatoes, all that comes from antiquity Jaime Benitez explains
And the afafir is meticulous Gold grains as well as tiny gold thread rings are handled, and where two figures perceive each more a millimetric golden solder joins the parts Little by little, minute by minute, a orb gets its latter work Four hours of assignment leave a circle blackened by the solder flame. Still ahead is polishing and cleaning Its not attainable assignment Like Anibal Ramos verbal to me when I asked if he was ever to teach his kids the netting art: This is a very ungrateful job, the artisan foundry too difficult and never gets from what to live
After working 6 hours digging and filtering, Aicardo Lopez got his day downfall and before the afternoon drizzle placed a mistake of paper with 3 grams of gold dust inside an El Rey matchbox. It was not a blighted day for him; he leave procure 11.000 pesos (around six dollars) for that quantity. It didnt dispute to him that the successive day that gold would become a handmade tatting pearl whose value for the innkeeper consign be other than dual what it paid for it
Gold Artisans