Biography
of Byron Ushina and Alexandra Aguirre
I was born on the
20th of May 1975, and I graduated with a degree in accounting with
my major being auditing. I began learning the art of silver
smiting at the age of fifteen, as an apprentice of my very skilled
father.
Pedro Ushina, my
father, has been creating fine jewelry (predominately gold), for
more than forty years. He has worked using many techniques,
both well-known and innovative, in order to create unusual and
distinctive hand-made pieces. Many of these techniques have
been handed down by the ancient indigenous people of South America
and in turn on to the pre-Incan and Incan peoples, for which our
continent is so well known. Later, with the arrival of the
Spanish, some of the jewelry changed from "typically South
American", to the baroque style that we now sometimes see. So,
with the different people and various cultures, techniques and
styles have changed, been enhanced, and improved over time.
I am married to
Alexandra Aguirre who was born on the 15th of July 1976. After
learning my craft from my talented father, in 1996, Alexandra and I
decided to branch our into the very competitive world of working
with and designing silver jewelry.
Our constant
innovativeness and search for improvement in creating jewelry, along
with our ample knowledge of our ancestry and investigation of
information, has assisted us immensely. As well as being aware
of anthropological and archaeological knowledge, we also endeavor to
keep well informed in the areas of marketing and graphic design.
This has enabled us to get to where we are now!
We believe in
ourselves and in our products. We know that we do things well,
and that our products are both rich in quality and design.
This has been made clear to us in the way in which our work has been
accepted in our own country, Ecuador, over the last ten years, as
well as the international acceptance we have received in the last
six years.
Five years ago
our products began to be recognized and appreciated in countries
such as Colombia, Chile, Brazil, and other Latin American counties.
The constant economic problems of South America however, encouraged
us to look toward other, although more competitive markets, like the
United States and Canada. This led on to interested parties in
Europe, encompassing cities such as Paris, London, Bonn, and
Amsterdam. Our products and designs in these places have been
highly accepted and praised.
The search to see our market prosper
and grow has been tireless. We have taken into consideration the
need to change or create designs, as well as relaying the culture to
which our jewelry pertains to the world. We have been able to do
this by displaying our pieces temporarily in prestigious galleries
in countries such as the United States of America, Canada, England,
Germany, Spain, Japan, Brazil, and France. However, we believe that
our challenge is to create work in our own country, hopefully
creating a better way and quality of life for our people
Allow us to introduce ourselves. Our
company creates and makes distinctive and unusually handcrafted
silver jewelry of the highest quality.
Our range of
our jewelry is handcrafted in Ecuador, South America, and uses a
number of unusual techniques using silver .950. We create our
pieces by hand, making each piece unique. Our work entails the use
of Incan symbols and designs, each having a significant meaning and
use, and we also use various semi-precious stones, all of which are
from the South American continent. Whereas some of these stones are
used as whole pieces in the silver jewelry. We also use a technique
of crushing these semi-precious stones to provide enamel-like, but
earthier, effect.
Your customers, therefore, would be
buying something which is a work of art, uniquely beautiful, and
ultimately symbolic of South American culture.
These pieces are for the customer who
wants something “out of the ordinary”, something striking or
something different, an incomparable gift for themselves or for
someone special. Ushiña designs can offer then this!
We embrace the opportunity to be able
to show you this distinctive, yet beautiful range, and know that you
will be enchanted by it.
Regards,
Byron Ushiña &
Alexandra Aguirre
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