Featured Artisan : Gloria Cadenas
In 2011, Gloria’s children gave her a dolls house as a reward for giving up smoking. Gloria is joining our showcase for the first time & she tells us a little more about her latest addiction.
Gloria makes her tiny leather miniatures whenever she can. She likes to dedicate as much time as possible to creating & perfecting her craft. When she first began to work out the skills needed for working with leather, she was lucky to have a great mentor, Violeta Llaneza, who encouraged her to keep trying. Patience is essential as a miniaturist, but you must also be able to envisage the process of how to shrink something to such a small size. This is really the hardest part, working out how to reduce something & still have it look real.
Gloria, you have a lot of talent, don’t waste it, see what you want to do, work & be good at it.
Words that Gloria hasn’t forgotten!
A tiny shoe should be as well made as a real shoe. Taking care of the finishing is so important as this really sets the standard for her work. Realism is everything to Gloria & this is what she strives for.
Many pieces that Gloria creates are connected to memories of the past. The piece that she is most proud of is the vintage camera case. From thinking about making it to the realisation took more than two years. The camera reminded her of her childhood, as her older brother had one just like it. It is also one of the pieces from my presentation for which I got the IGMA artisan membership.
Another piece with nostalgic memories for Gloria are The small heel purse, named after its shape of a shoe heel. An original design from more than 100 years ago. It was made in the province where she lives, her father had one just like it. It is often called a grandpa’s purse, since most grandparents have one like this.
We are excited to be able to share Gloria’s beautiful work with you on her showcase pgae & are pleased to announce that she will be attending the KDF Christmas Show in person in December.
You can see more of Gloria’s work HERE.
