Ana Calbucci graduated in Architecture and Design at the University of São Paulo in Brazil in 1986. She has always done manual activities in parallel to architecture, such as painting and drawing; however, in 2008 she got involved with jewelry and became interested in learning and improving in this field.
Ana started jewelry bench classes in a well-known atelier in São Paulo in 2010, and over time it started to occupy her internal creative space. She worked as an architect but at this point her head was getting further and further away from it.
Ana’s craft was very architectural and geometric in the beginning but she soon realized that her hands had a different characteristic. “I was fascinated by the organic forms, so I began to work with the lost wax technique, on which I managed to print movements, textures, and model the wax in a more organic way and later melt the pieces into metal,” says Ana about her starting techniques in making jewelry.
In this search for moldable and malleable materials, she came across polymer clay, which she began using about two years ago, learning a lot on her own or with the aid of tutorials. “What delighted me was the possibility of using a domestic oven at low temperatures. I mix the clay with metal because I like the combination with such distinct materials, and I make incrustations with stones on the mass itself; and everything goes together in the oven! The polymer clay’s hardening temperature alters neither the silver nor the stones,” explains Ana her choice of the newly implemented material.
Ana’s polymer clay pieces were exhibited at Joya Barcelona 2020, one of the most celebrated contemporary jewelry events in the world, as well as the second edition of the Brazil Jewelry Week in 2020 in São Paulo.
Polymer clay is now part of her jewelry language and it opened a huge window of possibilities to work with: “I love the diversity in how each artist finds his or her own language with this material!” says Ana and we can fully agree with her.
