The story of Los Colores de la Tierra

Brand mission and impact

The artist

The artist and designer of our jewelry, Jaime Vargas, is originally from Bogota, Colombia. Jaime spent most of his life studying and learning from different indigenous cultures and their traditional methods of producing artifacts throughout all of the Americas.

In 1992 after traveling throughout much of Latin America, Jaime arrived to Guatemala to learn from the rich Mayan culture.

    

From the left: The first logo of Los Colores de la Tierra (when it was called El Quinto Sol - The Fifth Sun). Jaime Vargas in one of our shops in Antigua

The artisans 

Jaime wished to expand and develop his jewelry collection with the talent of the local, Mayan artisans.

Learning about the poor working conditions for these talented artisans, Jaime's main objective quickly became to create dignified and fair working conditions in the villages of Guatemala while at the same time growing his knowledge about the ancestral methods used by these indigenous groups.

Artisans of Los Colores de la Tierra and artist Jaime visiting our artisan group in the Solola region in Guatemala 

"It occurred to me that their pay was not fair, which inspired me to work with them. My initial goal was to generate dignified and fair employment"

(Jaime Vargas)  

The design

The encounter with Mayan artisans led Jaime to develop and refine his jewelry design and production methods inspired by the traditional ways of the Mayan people.

With the local artisans' methods and Jaime's experience working with ceramic from Colombian indigenous groups, together they created a method to make our signature ceramic bead jewelry under the name of Los Colores de la Tierra (The Colors of the Earth).  

From the left: Our classic small beads. Different sizes of ceramic beads. Our classic beads after dying process