WILLIAM SPRATLING
RENAISSANCE PROJECT
of the
Artesanas Campesinas
The legacy of William Spratling
is the powerful motivator of a collaboration between the last of the generation of Taxco master silversmiths and the rural women artisans of Tecalpulco, an artisan village in the Municipality of Taxco de Alarcón, Guerrero. Old-fashioned jewelry-making arts.
     
 
ETHICAL FAIR TRADE JEWELRY
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 Ethical Fair Trade Jewelry
Ethical fair trade signifies that the value of the ornamental object derives from the creativity and productivity of the artisan. In ethical fair trade, the object receives its value from the maker, not from the money used to pay for it.
The timelessness of art, the hand working of metals and materials: This is where economics begins with ethical jewelry.
Ethical fair trade jewelry is a vehicle for cultural content. Not only in the designs, yet also in the richness of the artisans' experience. Ethical fair trade signifies the jewelry-makers, the small miners and refiners, and the family farmers in the context of local artistic and cultural practices, traditions and music.
Ethical fair trade preserves the dignity of the producers. Producers do not "take orders". They create and make the beautiful ornamental objects and decorative art that grace our lives. Handcrafted ornaments are more important than people realize.
Ethical fair trade means small producers do not have to endure humiliation just to make a living, and they don´t have to beg and plead with the buyers or have to wait to get paid. Ethical fair trade means dignity for the artisan and small producer
Ethical fair trade jewelry means that economics begins nowhere except with the person who expertly fashions the piece. From there, the value proceeds into the commercial sphere, where it is re-sold and merchants make their margins of profit.
The pre-colombian economics of the ancestors of the people of today's México illustrates of how ethical fair trade works on the level of macro-economics
The
Toltecs did NOT use money to create value and generate production of objects of art. The people produced food as well as art and the value of the food and art was imparted by the industry of the person who produced it.
This is only a single example of how ethical fair trade has an historical precedent.
Ethical Fair Trade jewelry means real economic development for producers.
Real economic developmental means the growth of capacity, the continuous increase of the capacity of the creative and industrious people to support their families. Real economic development is NOT the outgrowth of money nor the result of a commercial process. Economic development, true economic development, comes from individual human creativity as conditioned by local tradition and the universal requirements of beauty as deduced by inspiration and reason.
A poet has already said it:
"It is beauty that one must pass through to find freedom and justice."
Justice will never come from money.
However, it might come through the esthetic object and ethical fair trade.
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