Silvia Otaola has been making jewelry for nine years, creating extraordinary artistic jewelry pieces. Her works have been featured in various exhibitions and shows in and out of Houston. Currently Otaola is an international student at Houston Community College studying fashion design.

She wants to explore the fashion design industry so her artistic jewelry will perfectly match the cloth brand she will create. Otaola graduated from the Glassell School of Art with a certificate of achievement with a major in jewelry, she also has a certificate of achievement with a major in sculpture. Otaola is originally from Argentina where she grew up in an artistic family. She always enjoyed creating things with her hands.

Otaola spoke about when she started taking classes at Glassell nine years ago. “I arrived there just by chance because I was looking for a place where to study shoe design. I found out that there were no classes in Houston that teach shoe design. Somebody told me about Glassell School of art. I took some fundamental classes. The only major that attracted me was jewelry. I come from a family where everything was made at home: sewing cloth, repairs, Christmas decorations, even furniture. I always liked making things myself, since I was very young. I seldom wear jewelry myself, but I like working with metals, tools, and do things with my hands. I always think that it is a great feeling to take something that you created yourself wherever you go.”

Otaola explained her design style, and what makes her jewelry unique. “My jewelry has nothing to do with commercial jewelry. The jewelry that I design is artistic jewelry. I like the engineering, constructing process of creating jewelry. I have a lot of fun by creating from scratch three dimensional pieces that look like a wearable sculpture. I call the style of my jewelry whimsical. I like to create pieces of jewelry that cause a reaction from people.”

“I work with non-conventional materials like paper, acrylic, wood, cable ties, dark metal, and silver,” Otaola added.

When asked if she thinks that artistic jewelry is not very practical to wear every day. Otaola replied, “For some people my jewelry can look scary to wear. Some people ask me, ‘Would you really wear this?’ For me this is a whimsical part of my pieces.”

She draws her inspiration from within.

“Sometimes I have ideas when I am sleeping. It’s a good idea to keep the notebook on top of your night table to write down the detail of your future piece,” Otaola explains.

“Everybody has a different working process. Generally, I start from the scratch and later on I apply it directly on the material I have chosen. I found out that the more I work with jewelry, the more I understand how to design it. Sometimes I spend late hours at the school studio just finding out the exact steps of putting the pieces together. In jewelry, you have to know exactly the steps of putting details together. This process has to do with having an engineering mind. That is what I like about artistic jewelry. Jewelry by itself is very feminine, but the process of making it has a masculine side. I love the combination of both. It is not just about having an inspiring idea about jewelry that I want to design it is about the construction process. For the great results, both idea and process have to be in tandem.

In the future, Otaola wants “to learn as much as I can, to be able to create both clothes and accessories that can complement each other. Sometime in the future, I would love to have my own brand in both clothes and jewelry. The fashion department at HCC is for sure the place where I can gather all the knowledge and ability to do so. That why I am loving it!”