The process of valuing art and humanities is recognized as being crossed by subjectivity, and to balance the precariousness in which those labor fields develop in my country, a 17 year old me (aspiring artist and soon to be philosophy student) started to learn silversmith as craft since silver has a fixed rate value per gram.
I have since discovered that jewelry as a luxury specifically in my country stems more from perceived value than from production costs and materials, since the actual silversmiths and providers of handwork are paid less than the 10% of the value the pieces will be sold for. In Mexico we have an approach to silversmithing as a tradition trained in workshops between generations, instead of learning it on a schools where is offered as a degree of its own. Naively this was the first thing I tried to evidence and make different: I pushed for fair trade with providers and focused on affordability. I did with my own hands more than the 70% of the Grosera production, learning by trial and error a lot of things during the first years.
Is not a secret or something inherently negative that some stores expect you to sell them your pieces at 50% off so they can speculate on the retail price and make a higher profit. I got my first big order and had to scrap my numbers and raise them based on perceived value trying to not be taken advantage of, and even after that I got indebted. And like the rest of my silversmith friends, I ended up exploited making luxury items that neither my community or I could afford at the price that some retailer sells it. I was naive. I waited all year for the stock of this big store to get sold out before fixing my numbers again, because even if they broke their word and payed me months after the date they set knowing I was getting indebted waiting, I tried to please them.
I do not have a complex and emotional reflection to add at this time, I just feel love and gratitude towards my metalsmith friends, graphic designers, industrial designers, artists, those who have ethical and beautiful concept stores and in general towards all my friends without the need for a label, who have supported me and have not stopped doing so despite the complexity of this last year. Thank you for making sense of it. I will fix this mess and do better next year, for you.